Last week, I travelled to many farming communities in Edo state while working on a project. I was amazed by the lands under cassava cultivation. In some communities, every available land has been used to farm cassava, likewise all cassava sticks. Some farmers even destroyed thier plantain farms to have space to farm cassava. I kept asking myself if they have made the right decision.

Farmers mostly choose which commodity to plant base on the prices of the various commodities at the planting season. They plant the commodity that is selling for high price at the time of planting and avoid the one that is selling for low price. This method is very unreliable and insome casses, counterproductive.

During the time of harvest, there usually would be supply glut for the commodity that was previously expensive as majority of farmers cultivated it and the one that was cheap would be expensive as it is now scarce because very few farmers planted it.

Would this be the case for cassava next year? Only time would tell.

I once created a thread that talked about something similar. www.nairaland.com/3634928/5-agricultural-economic-principles-every

"A farmer's income increases when success is achieved at growing a crop in which other farmers had widespread failures"
The truth is not always palatable

Sadly it happened just as I predicted. Many people have abandoned their cassava farm because of very low prices. A farmer was complaining that a buyer was pricing an acre of her cassava farm twenty five thousand naira. With the massive scale cassava was planted last year, I doubt if the price of cassava would go up for five years.

Federal government that have been encouraging people to go to the farm should come their aid. Federal government should provide means for the surplus cassava to be exported.