Nigerian government cassava bread programme to gulp N10billion, says Agric Minister

Agric minister said that part of the fund was being used to acquire some 18 large scale high quality Cassava Flour Processing Plants from China to produce high quality cassava flour to scale up the demand for inclusion into wheat flour by master bakers and confectioneries

Federal Government on Sunday said it plans to spend about N10 billion to strengthen various organs that would help scale up the supply of cassava flour in the country.

The Minister of Agriculture, Akinwumi Adesina, said in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, that the scaling up of cassava supply would ensure a gradual replacement of wheat flour in bread by 50 per cent within the next three to five years.

The Minister said the recently introduced cassava bread, which has 20 to 30 per cent inclusion of cassava flour, was now available in shops across the country, adding that the challenge was how to get the product to various levels that needed interventions.

He said plans were underway to put the chain together to enable the government to achieve 50 per cent cassava inclusion in bread within the next three years, adding the Federal Government had provided N9.9 billion under the Cassava Bread Fund to enable the production chain scale up to the target.

The 30 per cent cassava inclusion in bread and other confectionery products, he said, had resulted in a decline by five per cent in the importation of wheat, from 4.2 million metric tonnes to 3.7 million metric tonnes.

Mr. Adesina said that part of the fund was being used to acquire some 18 large scale high quality Cassava Flour Processing Plants from China to produce high quality cassava flour to scale up the demand for inclusion into wheat flour by master bakers and confectioneries.

The Federal Government had also embarked on the training of the Small and Medium Scale Entrepreneurs, SMEs, and had provided facility to the Bank of Industry, BOI, to enable them acquire machinery to produce high quality flour for bakers.

The minister said that so far, government had trained 135 SMEs on the use of new flash dryers to increase the quantity of cassava flour production across the country, adding thst 375 master bakers had been trained on the use of chillers, rotary enzymes as part of the process to fully achieve set goal.

BOI would also provide the master bakers with modern equipment, with more than 3000 master bakers to be trained to enhance the process of baking the bread.

NAN