I listened and watched with keen interest the television report on cassava bread recently. What an interesting show: President Goodluck Jonathan sharing portions of a 40 per cent cassava-laden loaf of bread with his ministers! Expectedly, the nation, especially the media, made a hype of this novel product, which will help Nigeria reduce her wheat import and save some foreign exchange! It will help, according to the proponents, curtail our taste for foreign goods or our likeness for what we do not produce, which has become the nations hallmark. If I heard correctly, I thought the bread was a sample from the International Institute for Tropical Agriculture and it was to demonstrate what is possible with cassava, including bread production. But I have since read in the papers and heard it on radio that Mr. President now eats only this type of bread as an example to us, and has commended same to his ministers. Where is the bakery for this bread because some of us will like to follow Mr. Presidents example. Has the IITA opened a bakery now and has it added commercialisation of research findings to its mandate' My enquiries at a number of bakeries in Lagos did not support the take-off of the cassava bread scheme; so it will appear it is still a proposition, and the media should please leave it at that. But this is actually not the focus of this treatise. The focus is on the thrust of Nigerias economic policy, using the cassava bread and fuel subsidy as our primary reference.Those who care to review our national development process would recall that at a certain time in the past, Nigeria used to allocate substantial sums of money to research. The 2012 budget has just been read, and research remains obscured. That is one aspect of the economic policy issue we are talking about. The other aspect is that even with the meagre allocation to research, the products of these research institutes have always remained with themon their shelves. It is true for cassava bread, as it is true for many other findings. Those in doubt should take a trip to the Federal Institute of Industrial Research, Oshodi and they would find many discoveries waiting for take up and commercialisation. I do not know of any conscious attempt on the part of the government to link Nigerias research institutes with the industry.There was a time Nigeria used to have a robust agricultural extension system of its own. Today, what we have is only a pocket of World Bank and International Fund for Agricultural Development-assisted initiatives. Not too long ago, the British Council came up with what it called African Knowledge Transfer Programme seeking to link research work/outputs in British/Nigerian universities with the industry. That programme is still running very well in Kenya, but it never took firm root in Nigeria, with only Obafemi Awolowo and Bayero universities trying their hands on some projects. A major gap in our economic policy is therefore the establishment of a productive link between research and the industry; otherwise, it will continue to be motion without movement.On the issue of cassava bread, I like to submit, with all humility and candour, that it is nothing novel, but a mere theatrical show. Former President Olusegun Obasanjo was even more vigorous and more definitive, when it directed Nigerian flour mills to substitute 10 per cent of their wheat flour with cassava. Deadlines were set, and several consultations took place between the flour millers, Ministry of Agriculture and Cassava Processors Association of Nigeria. By now, all the flour millers ought to have adjusted their plants to take in cassava flour, but there were some practical implementation issues, which I thought should be the focus of economic policy rather than merely changing 10 per cent to 40. Let me try to recall some of these issues.The first is the issue of cost. It costs more to produce 10 per cent of cassava flour in Nigeria than to import the same quantity of wheat flour, and I hope the increased tariff on wheat import in the 2012 budget is not aimed at protecting this inefficiency in cassava production. We often hear the chorus that Nigeria is the world largest producer of cassava, but we do not hear the next statement of fact which is even more important: that Nigeria is one of the least competitive producers of cassava in the world, especially in terms of production cost; no thanks to the poor yield per hectare and the high cost of doing business that have now become a primary feature of the Nigerian business environment. During the tenure of President Obasanjo, some wool was pulled on the nations face with some political cassava chips exported to Asia. The economics of the few export consignments showed whopping losses, and we do not know who took the losseswhether the government or the exporters. But because the fundamental business factors did not justify the exports, it has expectedly died a quiet death. In 2011, the song we should be singing, if we are serious about our economic policy, is the effort of the government to make cassava production in Nigeria competitive, not that cassava bread is a possibility. We already know this.Closely related to the issue of cost is the current significant cassava supply-demand gap in Nigeria, even without the 10 (or is it now 40) per cent cassava bread. We often mistake the occasional glut in cassava harvest for excess of supply over demand. Nothing could be further from the truth. Cassava production in Nigeria is notorious for its boom and burst. One year there is great harvest, leading to a glut and price collapse; the following year the farmers abandon production to sulk over the previous years loss, creating scarcity and therefore a price surge. It is a cycle that has been with us over the years. I thought solving this problem should be the focus of economic policy now, not that cassava bread is a possibility. I am not an agronomist, but I know there are many Nigerians, who understand these issues more than I do and they will readily agree that there is a need to change our policy focus so that we have more movements with our motions. All our policy makers are widely travelled, and many of them have eaten fresh corn in KFC, regardless of the season of the year. That should have set someone thinking about how to even-out the boom-burst cycle in our agriculture through an effective storage/processing programmes. But what do we have' General statements without definite focus and plan of action. By the time we start producing bread with cassava, the local garri will become an expensive delicacy, unless an efficient and increased production and processing of cassava are given serious attention.Another major constraint to the adoption of cassava in flour production is the issue of quality. Only a negligible proportion of cassava flour produced in Nigeria meets the international quality standard for human consumption and industrial use, especially in terms of moisture, impurities and cyanide contents. The reasons are not far-fetched: the clumsy nature of the product itself and the quality of processing equipment used by the farmers. Cassava is bulky and it ferments very quickly if not processed immediately after harvest. The challenge of transportation that confronts the Nigerian farmer does not help this situation, neither is the prohibitive cost of importing processing equipment. Smaller equipment that could be fabricated locally are not available at affordable costs, no thanks to the infrastructural bottlenecks such as lack of electricity and basic iron and steel raw materials. Ameliorating these bottlenecks with a clear plan of action should be our priorities now if we want to have motion with movement, not that cassava bread is a possibility.- Adebiyi is Managing Partner, R&S Consulting Limited, Maryland, Lagos. He wrote in via adebiyifemi@gmail.com
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