A large scale cassava farmer in Ilorin, Mr Tajudeen Onilu, has attributed the sky-rocketing price of gari in several parts of the country to the decline in cassava production.

Onilu, who is also the Secretary of Cassava Growers Association in Kwara, told journalists on Saturday in Ilorin that cassava farming activities had declined drastically.

According to him, this development has resulted in scarcity of cassava, thus triggering a hike in the price of gari and other food and non-food items prepared from cassava.

Onilu observed that that several young Nigerians who were supposed to remain in their localities to engage in cassava farming, had migrated to urban centres and taken to commercial motorcycle and other businesses.

The cassava farmer called on the Federal Government to introduce accessible and affordable loans to genuine cassava farmers in the country, to enable them embark on mass production.

A plastic container of gari, which was formerly sold for between N180 and N200, now sells for N400, while the price of a small container of the product, has shot up to N40, from its former N20.


Source: http://okhunlun..com.ng/2017/03/farmer-attributes-high-cost-of-gari-to.html

Garri is presently too cheap if you consider the cost of production involved in Nigeria. Also, Nigeria annual cassava production has actually annoyingly increased by 3million metric tonnes in the last five years. Annoyingly ,because the dismal increase in production of this most staple food to about 500million people in Africa and about 170million Nigerians is not commensurate with our growing population .There is no gainsaying that Nigeria is the highest producer of cassava globally with a present estimated annual production capacity of 43Million metric tonnes annually. But Thailand with about 25million metric tonnes/ annum -a far record from Nigeria's , is the highest exporter of cassava products in the world and makes more money than Nigeria in sales in the cassava value chains.

The Nigerian peasant farming is responsible mainly for the seeming enviable credential the country parades as the highest producer of this 21st century crop gold at the global arena. Recently , there is a new entrant consumer into the Nigerian cassava products pipeline especially since President Buhari banned the importation of poultry foods products and the attendant scarcity of maize used in poultry feeds formulation: poultry feeds.

The Nigerian Poultry demand on cassava as an alternate source of carbohydrate to maize most especially is another factor that has increased the market demand for cassava. ..........