Mr. Amedu I. Amedu a farmer who specialized in cassava processing and cultivation, runs an outfit known as Cassano Global Services, a cassava project at Etche, Rivers State, has disclosed to newsmen that he has been in the business for five years, basically visiting the upland areas especially in Isiokpo, Etche, Ikwere, Emuoha, Ogoni, etc where he harnesses the potential of the rural people and distribute high yield variety seedling for planting and cultivation. He added that his sole purpose is to bring the rural communities to actually benefit from the laudable cassava project.
Mr. Amedu further said that Nigerian will go hungry if farmers stop cultivating cassava because it is one of the fundamental plants that supports food security in the country. “Besides, Nigeria is the greatest producer of cassava in the world yet we get little value for it.”
The renowned agriculturist affirmed that Nigerian farmers are not really benefiting from their labour due to the lip service government is paying to agriculture. According to him, farming is capital intensive and cannot be borne by one man alone, therefore farmers need support from the government.
Cassano initially had garri processing machines but the problem he had was power and drying machine to preserve the garri, which often decays if not properly dried.
To this end cassano is calling on the government of Rivers State to ensure that the rural communities have electricity and drying machines for their farm products and see what the farmers will turn out. Additionally, Mr. Amedu posits that the government needs to involve carpets and stakeholders especially in the area as cassano is striving such as to facilitate the laudable project of training rural farmers providing them with high yield variety cassava and also educating them on how to take care of the various species of cassava.
He strongly decried the neglect of agriculture due to the discovery of crude oil. Adding that most countries in Africa has discovered oil yet they still have well organized agricultural system which attributes to the reason why they are almost doing better than Nigeria.
Mr. Amedu finally noted that Cassano is ready to partner with Rivers State ministry of Agriculture to ensure the improvement of farming in the state and create employment for able-bodied young men wasting away in crime due to idleness. ###
Boniface Ogbeni
