Confab on value addition on cassava products ends
A conference aimed at encouraging cassava producing countries to add value to their products to generate more income has been organised in Accra.
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The conference identified that cassava could be produced in various forms as chips for snacks, flour for the bakery industry, industrial starch for the pharmaceutical and wood industries and additives for food.
Dubbed ‘The 2nd Cassava World-Africa Summit,’ it was organised by the Thailand based Centre for Management Technology on the theme “Roadmap to increase cassava production and investments of higher value-added products.”
Hosted by the Ghana Cassava Growers Association, the summit brought together representatives and stakeholders from major cassava growing countries in the world including, Nigeria, Brazil and Mozambique.
The conference also urged the private sector to partner small-holder farmers to increase cassava production in participating countries to alleviate poverty.
The Africa Regional Agro Industrialist Officer of the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO), Ms Stephanie Gallatova, called for a more conducive policy environment to promote public-private-partnership (PPP) in the agriculture sector.
Partnership
Ms Gallatova said through the PPP, the private sector could venture into areas such as agro-processing and building capacities of small-holder farmers to produce more.
She mentioned Nigeria, which, she said, had over the years embarked on a cassava transformation agenda that had led to the country producing 35 per cent of high quality cassava in Africa.
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Following the Nigerian government intervention, the country, over the last three years, increased its cassava production from 42 million tons to 55 million tons.
Ghana, on the other hand, Ms Gallatova said, produced 14 to 15 million tons of cassava yearly. She, however, indicated that Ghana also had the potential to produce more with the right policy environment.
Commitment
In a speech read on his behalf, the Minister of Food and Agriculture, Alhaji Mohammed-Muniru Limuna, said currently, Ghana was considering a policy that would ensure the production of high quality cassava flour for use in the food industry.
Consequently, the minister said, “we have put together a cross-sectorial team which is working to develop a composite flour using High Quality Cassava Flour (HQCF) policy by the government with support from the FAO.”
According to him, the cassava value chain was an economic transformation tool for food security, economic opportunities and poverty alleviation when structured properly.
“Cassava is a major transformation crop which can be a major game-changer in our national development agenda”, the minister further stated.
Alternative
The Managing Director of Caltech Ventures, Mr Chris Quarshie, said the HQCF, which is unfermented edible cassava flour, had been identified as a potential industrial crop to reduce imports, increase exports, create employment and increase small-holder farmers’ incomes along the value-chain system.
He said due to its versatility and high starch content, cassava could be processed into four main product areas such as cassava chips, HQCF, starch and ethanol.
Mr Quarshie said HQCF was the low hanging fruit due to its relative ease of production, higher value addition, low investment cost, and a viable alternative to wheat flour and native starch in bakery and industrial applications.
He said when promoted, a total of 115,000 tons of HQCF could be used to address demands in the bakery industry to replace wheat flour, industrial starch production and packaged food industry.
The director, however, mentioned major constraints such as the importation of wheat flour which, he said, needed to be addressed by the government.