Ensuring Sustainable Development in Cassava Value Chain and Value Addition in Nigeria

Abstract

This work is positioned to review sustainable development framework in Cassava value chain and value addition in Nigeria. It takes a crucial look at Sustainable Development Goals, Cassava Potentials and Policy Initiatives, Cassava Value Chain and Value Addition. Contemporary rural and urban food system in Nigeria is grappling with the critical challenges of climate change,
rapid industrialization and urbanization that take over designated farmland with attendant waste problems, slum menace and youth restiveness, banditry; armed conflict scenario and poor or lack of master plan for emerging agro-economies to ensure sustainable development in Nigeria’s cassava system. The introduction of high yielding, early bulking varieties tolerant to the cassava mosaic disease and cassava bacterial blight, produced at the International Institute for Tropical Agriculture and the establishment of small-scale processing facilities are appreciable systematic interventions. Hence, this study supports the assertion that for efficient cassava value chain development, raw materials, technologies, financing, institutional support and technical and administrative human resource are essentials.