Pistotita:
1. Cassava
World Bank is really interested in this crop the moment bio-technology made it possible to produce cassava with extreme high starch content. Funny that Nigerians are not interested in starch but in the most common end products in SW and SE which are garri, and another one called "fufu" in the west. Hahaha! The Ijebus (a popular mini tribe in the Yoruba land which spreads from Epe, Lagos to Ogun State with their main town in Ijebu Ode) have a special fermented garri with peculiar aroma. It just must be sour, else it is worthless in the market. Actually, I enjoy drinking garri with powdered milk, nuts, and without any sweetner. Hahaha! But I do not so much like eating "eba", the cooked form of garri because it takes too long to digest. I just do not like it, and fufu is a capital NO for me too. While the Ibos hate so much this fermented version, they usually make their garri by adding palm oil to it which turns the color to yellow. Yeah! This version of "eba" tastes better in my mouth, while drinking it as garri is disastr.ous. And they even pound it to make it smoother.

Value Chain
1. Cassava Tubers --> Cooked tubers
2. Cassava Tubers --> Processed to garri ---> Local Market --->Packed for grocery stores
3. Cassava Tubers ---> Processed to Fufu wet/dry powder -->Local Market --> Packed for grocery stores
4. Cassava Tubers ---> Cassava Flour ---> Used in 10-20% flour proposed for bakery esp bread, but not used OR Exported
5. Cassava Tubers ---> Starch ---> Replace Corn Starch by Many industries OR Exported

Cassava Starch is the reason World Bank got involved, and it is expected that cassava starch will overtake corn starch in the world market. But it has its limitation too. One of it is that cassava tubers must be processed immediately after harvest, not even 24 hours after. The earlier it's processed, the better the starch or flour from it. Therefore, it is expected to situate the factory right inside the farm.

Huge Challenge For Corn and Starch Production
How is it possible to situate a huge factory in the bush? Where is the power to drive the equipment? Or do you want to use solar energy to drive huge equipment? Hehehe. I believe World Bank should be tired to pushing cassava starch at this stage because Africa, especially Nigeria is not ready. The world expects more productivity from Nigeria, but she is slacking. This country should be great, but her obituary is coming out soon with the kind of people in power, and I seriously pray against it.

Free Trade Zones and the World Starch Market
It sounded like a good idea to situate ones business in the free trade zone to enjoy free taxes since the business is going to be more of exportation. In 2013 when I was writing 2 billion naira 80 tons of cassava starch daily production business for Lekki Zone (actually the optimum production of the factory was suppose to be 100 tons daily), I realised that the road network even from Epe town to the destination might be ok at the initial stage, but may be hard in the future. I just know most of our tubers would not gain easy access to the factory because of congestion, and we would run at loss. My partners were trying to force it just to take advantage of the already available loan and other incentives attached. But I was going to be most likely the CEO of the firm, and I would be the one with sleepless nights during operation. I looked at the incentives attached, and what we would likely face in the nearest future, and I just said No. I was not going forward. Since there was no way to install another form of plant to generate energy for the factory in the bush at the time, I could not run the business..They felt I was joking with all the benefits attached, but they were wrong. While I was trying to convince myself if their proposal could be looked into, I met the expat who is the MD of the firm which was about installing the factory in Eko Hotel. Fortunately, he came to Lagos from Europe for a week business meetings, and he was the one who told me about all the failed factories his company had installed in West Africa, even one along Ibadan Express Way just because the factories were not in the bush. That was when I quit the business. No power in the bush, forget Cassava Starch production in a very big way. Except you just can arrange smooth transportation from farm to your factory continuously. Do not ever depend on farmers for tuber supply. You have just dug out the pit your factory will be buried before you start operation by relying on farmers. Dead on arrival!

Subsistence Cassava Farming
Until power improves tremendously in Nigeria, Cassava cultivation will stil continue to be dominated by subsistence farmers. In fact by indegenes of the areas garri, fufu, and starch food are known for.

Low Yield
Since the sponsors of mandates of research institutes are not interested in cassava production for local diets, old cultivars are still mostly used. Well, might be IITA has got some better versions, I do not know. But I am sure that these indegenes are so concerned about a peculiar aroma, taste, or whatever they want which warrants them to stay more with low yield cultivars. There is a saying amount them that Never use fertilizer to grow cassava . Is it true? Waoooo! Therefore, land rest is vital since they need natural nutrients only. It's cheap for them too. But they always run out of land faster than expected; therefore, they remain extremely poor. Please, if you are a cassava farmer producing for making garri, kindly share with us more information about this believe of not cultivating cassava with fertilizer, and why is the believe so common among them. Or has it changed? I doubt it. lol.

Cassava production leads me to my first 2 principles for commercial Agro farming business in Nigeria.

Principle 1: Be extra careful with Agro processing businesses which require heavy equipment usage, especially if the product has short shelf life, or just avoid them
Power needs to be available. Until power is supplied uninterrupted, Nigeria cannot fly like eagle on her coat of arm. Mark my words, power is the main ingredient lost in taking our economy to the next level. APC and Buhari are jokes concerning their next level without sufficient power. I believe we should let any incoming president know that if he cannot supply minimum of 50MW power, he should forget it. For Christ sake, Lagos population is millions. I believe the official figure for Lagos population is flawed as the real figure is much more than the official figure. It is cra.zy. Something is wrong with Nigeria. And can you imagine how big the north is, and the population there is so scanty compared to Lagos. Even hausas are migrating to Lagos to hustle. And Buhari wanted cows to join the population too in the name of creating farm ranches (Ruga) across the country. Hahahahah. Ma.dness dey oooo. Walahi! Federal Government does not understand anything about economy. Standard and confirmed! Full Stop!

Thank God President Buhari admitted yesterday that his best is not good enough for the power sector. Click HERE

On the otherhand, I don't still know how anything which requires physical wire electricity distribution will work in Nigeria. The people themselves are hear.tless, wic.ked, and they are their own wor.st ene.mies. Telecommunication did not work until physical wire distribution was dumped. Is there any wifi electrical distributions which Nigerians can use? Why? Nigerians tamper with these cables. When a man has the confidence to tamper with high voltage transformer powering several streets with minimum of 30 houses in each, then you realise that de.vil resides in many Nigerians. Hehehehehe! When you gat the confidence to climb a ladder and tamper with live cables without consulting the authority so that experts can be sent to check the fault. But the so called experts too are ma.d set of humans. Seriously, the man who will solve Nigerian Power challenges might be more powerful than Angel Michael, and softer than Gabriel.


Principle 2: An agro processing firm should produce at least 80% of its raw material
The second principle was confirmed after the collapsed of Dangote tomato factory and I think he is trying to correct it. Your business is dead on arrival if you rely on farmers to supply up to 50% of the raw materials for your factory. This is not a trading business. After the tomato factory issue, Alhaji Dangote approached another governor in the North for land for farming, and that one too was asking him to liase with farmers. Dangote just told the governor that he, his farmers, their land will be alright. lol. They lost huge investment from Dangote Who has resources to waste on lazy farmers. That's even in the north..South is worse. Hehehe! The northern farmers still produced, but these southern farmers will definitely divert the money invested in them elsewhere. Never work with the do - called Togolese, Cotonou, Benue, etc workers if you do not know how to handle them. They are de.mons on farms. Your investment will start evaporating like boiled water in your presence using these people as workers. They do not care. They just want to collect salary. And if you know any farmer who is using them, tell him to take Blood Pressure test, and you will understand. Even the boss on farms ages faster than the boys working because of unrest mind set. Hehehehe! Please, do not ever write me to come manage your farm, esp if it's located in the south. I beg you in God's name. I gat my challenges in my business to address. Lol.

Lessons learnt
1. Becareful with government, IMF, and World Banks proposals. They are not the best in most cases. Personally, I do not like most of their solutions for developing nations. They are more interested in serving the developed nations funding them. Until Nigeria starts funding them too, I do not expect much from them.
2. Stay away from using too much power in your farm. Push forward any farming operation that require power till Nigeria gets it right. Maybe not in our generation. So, do not do it.
3. Farmers are not reliable. Be the farmer of what you want to process. Infact, cover about 80% of the value chain of the industry you want to dive in. Else, you will have serious and many challenges in the nearest future after the commencement of operation.

Recommendations for Cassava Business
1. Cassava is not meant for subsistence farming. You need minimum of 10 ha to do it well with tractors of yours; else, you will be poor like the indegenes.
2. Your best bet as at this moment is still local food production such as garri/fufu/food starch, etc..
3. Consult IITA to get local manufacturers of equipment used for such processing. Make sure you calculate the energy needed before you dived into it. Never go for too heavy equipment. Look for equipment which are very good on low power or manually easily operated. Never listen only to those manufacturers because they want to sell. Consult users of their machines. Not only the ones they send you to, but dig deep to find angry customers and listen to them very well.
4. Consult a vegetable expert to take you on ways to boost nutrients in your soil organically so you can keep down the quantity of fertilizer. Check this other thread of mine to start thinking like a vegetable farmer. Click HERE.
5. For uninterrupted operation, plan towards getting your own mini tractor.
6. Do not expand too fast. Since you do not have power to operate heavy equipment, you are going to still rely on moderately to heavily on human resources.
7. Cassava tuber sales is not profitable. Aim at processing your tubers.
8. Personally, I think if you cannot monitor harvest and processing through a trusted manager or by yourself, keep off cassava business. It takes minimum of 8 months to mature, and then, you run at loss during harvest and processing just because you cannot monitor it well. So, if you are in diaspora, consider all these issues before setting up a cassava farm. It is not such a wonderful business as promoted by consultants as at this moments. It is ok, but it has got its challenges which they will not tell you.
9. That cassava farming involves lower production risks does not mean the losses are low. Infact, cassava tubers and wholesale end products prices are highly volatile. 8 months is a long time to predict sales price. So, I put it under high risk farming business. And cassava removes too much nutrients in the soil. It's a tricky farming in my opinion, and can be ridiculous if you do not know the tricks

EMMAACHILE:
Some notable points
Cassava needs fertilizer especially N and K. It takes a lot of nutrients from the soil and may have to be replaced.

A friend sold his house for about 30m and cultivated about 300 hectares of cassava last year. He sold the tubers to an ethanol plant in Kogi at an average of 22,000 per tonne and made a lot of money. He even sponsored his wife masters UK study from the profits.

Pistotita:
2. Plantain and Banana
Plantain is one of the crops that I know one can easily get it right because of the input of IITA. One of the mandates of IITA is to improve food production in Africa; therefore, there are templates for subsistence practice of plantain and banana.

I looked into these two crops when I was researching cocoa since they are both used as shades to nurture cocoa from seedlings to matured plants in Africa. I really enjoyed everything about these crops because research materials published by IITA are too numerous. The information is just out there. I mean same applies to Cassava too. And from these researches, I diverted into horticulture which I will forever be grateful to all the people I have met in the journey.

Suckers Sold by Farmers are Dead Traps
The first mistake most new comers and even old farmers continue making is using suckers directly from another farm. It is what I call direct licence to import foreign diseases to ones farm. It's simple as ABC. No matter how the farmer treats the seedlings, diseases are surely in them. Do those things called suckers packed in those vehicles look like success to you? I can just imagine the population of foreign diseases imported to new farms via these suckers. OK. "Business don pafuka for suckers sellers. Lol. They will soon be out after me like hungry lions. Hehehe!

Tissue Culture and Macro Propagation
Get your seedlings via these two means. Recently, I was discussing with a seller who does not even understand the difference between the two. I was trying to outsource producing tissue culture seedkings since I do not have much time to do it myself. He was not able to differentiate the two, and this is an OP of over 30-something pages of plantain suckers thread on nairaland. I just swallowed the disappointment and left him in peace.

Irrigation
Make no mistake, all crops need irrigation. It is old form of farming to rely on rain. Rain fed farmers do not always have full benefits of their crops. And I realised this because some fruits are just tiny and too small in the market that I begin to wonder what could be wrong with these fruits since it is absolutely not necessary to bombard these crops with high dose of fertilizer. It did not occur to me that rainy season fruits are robust than dry season fruits, and that water is the main difference until I saw a banana farm (those cultivars with over 100 fruits in a bunch) thriving in the dry season. Why? The owner chose a slight swampy land for his banana plants. That was when I realised the necessity of water because I used to think since banana and plantain don't die (but keep coming up), water is not needed. That was a wrong assumption. lol. But I also know it is impossible to cultivate with irrigation everytime, and good swampy land is scarce.

Threats
Theft is the main obstacle. Workers on farm, other farmers around, and even villagers are all dangerous to these crops.

Glut is another challenge for rain fed farmers, but I can say food is extremely becoming expensive that glut period still comes with reasonable profit for most agricultural products. Just from my personal observation.

Opportunities
Chips making in different forms is very profitable. And this is a very good reason one can decide to cultivate 50 hectares of these crops. The idea is to get the right cultivar for what you want to do. There are chips that are brown and soft, and in the shape of potato fries from McDonalds, while there are ones that are in the shape of fried plantain called "Dodo". Some processed with salt, while others are dressed with chilli. Or perhaps just plain chips without special spicies. Chips can last very long without using power to preserve them.

Recommendations
1. Look at the cost of production very well before embarking on it.
2. It is a profitable venture, but the threats can easily make it a frustrating venture.
3. It is possible to use manual and human resources for processing as long one can monitor workers properly.
4. Make sure you get the right cultivar for your end products. If you use a bitter plantain to make chips, buyers will ignore your products, likewise you need to know the cultivar market women purchase more in your area of selling raw fruits.

If you are in diaspora, let this venture slide if the venture is not big enough. It is not just for you. The main threat which is theft will consume your efforts. Please, there is no gain for you in this venture. Except you do it on a very large expanse of land and you are into different kinds of end products like fruit juice, chips, flour, etc. In this case, thieves will steal and will eventually get tired. Or you can provide security.

Caution
Do not join the league of producers, wholesalers, and retailers who are in the habit of using deadly chemicals to preserve plantain, banana, oranges, and mangoes. Please, stop it if you are doing it, you are giving consumer of your products cancer which is extremely painful. It is just plain wickedness.

Kobomax:


Nice thread. God bless you for sharing this information and more. Can you please explain better how banana/plantain seedlings can be gotten through tissue culture and macro propagation. Thanks

EMMAACHILE:
Is power oil from palm oil?

EMMAACHILE:
Palm oil is not advisable to any young chap because there are better alternatives like cashew with less processing or Plantain if you can irrigate with better yields.

Unconventional trees in my opinion will give better returns as opposed to main stream cash crops but irrigation is key here.

EMMAACHILE:
Pawpaw with yields of at a least N5000 per tree per year and about 2000 can be planted on a hectare.

Moringa even if local can give about N3000 per harvest per year with 2 harvest a year. I have a local one in the village giving about 3kg per harvest. You can grow about 1600 per hectare.

The best bride if there is capital is the wambugu apple. I learnt one of the cons is the attack from birds so I didn't order to plant. Anything not safe from birds is a headache for me.
It could give at least N50,000 per tree with about 640 per hectare. It could last for a 100 years and over. The startup for Apple is very high.

To get these yields, we must farm smart with irrigation.

EMMAACHILE:
Pawpaw with yields of at a least N5000 per tree per year and about 2000 can be planted on a hectare.

Moringa even if local can give about N3000 per harvest per year with 2 harvest a year. I have a local one in the village giving about 3kg per harvest. You can grow about 1600 per hectare.

The best bride if there is capital is the wambugu apple. I learnt one of the cons is the attack from birds so I didn't order to plant. Anything not safe from birds is a headache for me.
It could give at least N50,000 per tree with about 640 per hectare. It could last for a 100 years and over. The startup for Apple is very high.

To get these yields, we must farm smart with irrigation.

FMCASH:
But there should be solution for the birds palaver. Technology will solve that bro

EMMAACHILE:

The only solution so far is covering the fruits with nets. That's very tasking for a large no of trees.

ksolomania:
pls this pawpaw is there
somewhere to sell it apart from the
local market,i have more than 20
trees in my farm that i planted just
for eating but are wasting now due
it excess