Cassava Farmers’ Perception of Cassava Initiative: Implication for Cassava Transformation in Nigeria.

Abstract

Cassava gained a leading role among cash crops in Nigeria following the establishment of the cassava initiative, making the crop become a white gold. The initiative aimed at making the crop a source of foreign exchange earner for the country. The study was carried out in Nigeria among members of the cassava growers association. The study covered those who had being members of the association for at least 10 years. Multi-stage sampling was used to select 290 respondents for the study. Males constituted 72.8% of the respondents, 76.9% were married with mean age of 48.4±12.8years, 65.5% had farming as their primary source of income and 53.8% had at least secondary school education. The initiative was favourably perceived among 55.2% of the respondents. For the success of the cassava transformation, respondents perceived that issues such as training on quality standards for export need to be adequately provided, agro-chemicals should be available at subsidised rate any time they are needed by the farmers. In addition, assistance of cassava inputs provided by the government should be adequate while strategies that ensure fair distribution of the resources be implemented. Adequate marketing channels for cassava were available with the initiative, Training on quality standards for export was adequately provided. Cassava initiative should reduce the cost of production in the cassava sub-sector.

Key word: Initiative, Cassava, Perception