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Socialist Democracy March - April 2005

The cassava bread policy of Obasanjo regime, according to its designers, is to compel, by legislation, the inclusion of cassava flour in bread making and other confectionaries in Nigeria, in the ratio of ninety percent (90%) wheat flour and ten percent (10%) cassava flour as against the subsisting 100% whole wheat bread presently consumed.

By November 2004, government mandated the implementation of this policy to commence January, 2005. The Special Assistant to the President on Food Security, Mrs. Oluwatoyin Adetunji, placed an advert in major newspapers including The Guardian, Saturday January 1st, 2005, titled "BEHOLD NIGERIAN BREAD", wherein she stressed the need to "follow-up on the implementation of the new policy measure of the Federal Government on 10% inclusion of cassava flour in bread and other confectioneries to meet the challenge of demand by the Flour Millers".

A programme schedule was announced for sensitization and training workshop on production and packaging of high quality cassava flour in the twenty seven cassava producing states in Nigeria. By this, the government and its agencies would like to be taken serious on this policy. But apprehension and cynicism that greeted this policy by major stakeholders, farmers, processors, millers and master bakers were confounding. Most perceive the programme as propaganda or mere lip service to food security in Nigeria.

Babangida's regime had taken them through a similar fantasy before in the hey days of Directorate of Food Road and Rura Infrasstructure (DFRRI) when wheat was supposed to be banned in order to allow millers and bakers to look inward and substitute cassava for maize. The programme crashed just like the disgraced dictator government crashed out of office.

Will there be any difference this time around and can Nigeria agriculture, in its present mode, meets the expected demand for cassava and other necessary inputs in place for any impact of this policy to be felt by the people including the consumers? The objective realities in agriculture and its allied enterprises in Nigeria do not suggest that any meaningful achievement can be made. The Nigeria bread of composite wheat and cassava flours may, at best, continue to be a mere conjecture of Obasanjo and his team.

Cassava is the fourth staple food in the world and Nigeria is the largest producer of the crop. Cassava products like Garri, Lafun (dried flour) are consumed by over 70% of the Nigerian population making the average demand for cassava estimated at about 12,900 metric tones per annum. Notwithstanding the obvious potential of cassava as a treasure crop that can turn around the economy of the nation, its cultivation, processing and marketing have suffered the same fate of neglect like other aspects of agriculture partly due to adverse effect brought by the commercial production of petroleum, corruption and inconsistency of government agricultural programmes and policies. So, any attempt to neglect general agriculture and isolate one or two crops for supposed development is an exercise in futility. Agricultural problems need holistic approach. That Nigerians still starve with the abundant agricultural resources shows that the anti-poor Obasanjo regime cannot be trusted in its cassava bread project.

Nigeria has about 98.8 million hectares of land with 72% of its potentially cultivable, making agriculture the largest employer of labour with over 60% total labour force in agriculture. Over three decades ago, before "oil boom", agriculture accounted for over 50% of the country's Gross Domestic Product and its contribution to the foreign exchange earning was over 70% before it dropped down to an all time low of 4%.

The parlous state of agriculture is a culmination of anti-poor, neo-liberal economic policies of successive capitalist regimes in Nigeria, which peaked with the total embrace of IMF/World Bank Structural Adjustment Programme by governments, starting with Babangida which Obasanjo has further carried to its "logical conclusion" of total deregulation of the down stream sector of oil and removal of subsidy on agricultural products, leaving prices to be determined by the blind market forces of capitalism called open market economy.

To underline how unserious the government is in developing cassava cultivation to meet both local and foreign consumption, a foremost cassava farmer, Pastor Segun Adewunmi who cultivates 240 hectares (about 3,600 plots of land or 2.4km) of cassava has this to say: "Our cassava can not meet the world market for now because the cost of production is more than three times the cost of production elsewhere. Even, Ghana is faring better….The cost of producing a ton of cassava here in Nigeria is about N5,000, whereas in countries such as South Africa, it is less than N1,500.." On availability of agriculture, loan to farmers, he also has this to say: "I have buildings in choke areas that could stand as collateral. I equally have farm implements like bulldozers, ploughers, tractors and everything it takes to be a mechanized farmer. But regrettably, I have not in any way been able to obtain any fund or loan from the Nigeria Agricultural Co-operative Bank (NACB) for the past four years…. You only hear in the media how much has been budgeted for agriculture, but sadly enough, we do not know where the money goes to". (The Guardian July 31, 2004). If an educated mechanized farmer can face this harrowing experience, what will be the fate of over 75% Nigerian subsistent farmers who are illiterate and poor?

Only a government of the working people consciously striving to better the lot of everybody in society can muster the necessary massive technological and financial resources needed to positively turn agriculture and other key sectors of the economy around on a permanent basis. But the individualistic and capitalist, neo-liberal policies which form the bedrock of this government’s economic policy can never make this attainable.

Socialist Democracy March - April 2005