Cassava Bread: Bakers decry shortage of cassava flour

By Moshood O karim

OSOGBO- The cassava-bread initiative of the federal government is a good policy as the programme aims at cutting the country’s annual spending of about N635 billion on importing wheat by 30 percent and creates employment for many.

However, investigation by this writer in Oshogbo, the Osun State capital reveals that the cassava bread production level remains low as bakers have advanced various challenges facing the programme. One of such is related to the shelf life of cassava blended-bread, inadequate cassava for industrial use as over 70% of cassava produced in the country is already used for direct consumption. This implies that the percentage available for industrial use is in adequate.

Adebisi Akanni, Director, Oredunni Special Bread, Osogbo in an interview explains that: “for the programme to succeed, government must open up more land for cassava cultivation and improve the quality of cassava production. There is need to organise workshops to train bakers in the use of new bread production techniques appropriate to cassava-wheat flour blends.”

According to him one major challenge is mixing of wheat flour and cassava flour because bakers here, do not have the technologies and the expertise to compound the composite flour, but can only buy the already mixed ones which have only some percentage of cassava.” He furthered.

Mrs Folashade, a nutritionist told this reporter: “well, the policy is a good one if the government plans it very well, because it would reduce government importation of wheat, but cassava output must be increase through mechanized farming of large hectares.”

However, John Olanipekun, General Manager, Osun State Agricultural Development Corporation (OSSADEC) explains that the Osun State government on its part has taken strategic steps to enforce the policy by giving farmers access to loans, and opening up more arable land for the cultivation of cassava and provision of fertilizer.

Olanipekun said: “what I know the government has done through my agency- OSSADEC is that government has opened up more land for cassava cultivation. For instance I remember last year we have include virgin land up to 1,500 hectares to make land available to farmers for the cultivation of cassava in abundance. Government has also made sure that farmers have easy access to fertilizer in order to improve plant yields. These are some of the steps taken so far to enable farmers get raw material for the production of cassava bread.”

It would be recalled that the Goodluck Jonathan led federal government had initiated the cassava-wheat bread blend in 2012 to drastically save billions of naira spent yearly on the importation of wheat. If properly implemented the nation stands to gain a lot from it.