PIND’s second value chain analysis focused on Nigeria’s cassava sector. Nigeria is the largest cassava producer in the world, averaging an annual production of about 35 million mt over the last 5 years, yet it is a major importer of processed cassava products, especially starch. About one-third of the total national output comes from the Niger Delta region where many livelihoods depend on cassava as a main source of food and income. PIND’s value chain study concluded that the main growth markets are for high quality cassava flour and the industrially processed starch and sucrose (not the traditional food markets). While many of the challenges facing the cassava value chain are common to all agricultural products (weak extension services, poor access to credit, poor availability of input supplies, fragmented marketing, etc), critical constraints for cassava processors to meet the demand from the growth markets are linked to the reliability and timeliness of supply and coordination with the processors. Moving forward, PIND will continue developing market based approaches to addressing these challenges, initially focusing its efforts on resolving the challenges facing small, commercially oriented farmers to supply processors with sufficient volumes of the right quality tubers.
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