The document discusses Africa's failure to achieve a "green revolution" in agricultural productivity comparable to that seen in Asia and Latin America in the 1960s and 1970s. It notes that cereal yields in sub-Saharan Africa have only risen to 1.3 tonnes per hectare compared to over 3 tonnes globally. The article uses Zimbabwe as a case study, describing how agricultural production has declined sharply since the 2000 land reforms, with food imports now costing $750 million annually. Experts say slow recovery is hampered by politics, drought, and lack of access to financing for farmers. The future prospects for boosting yields and self-sufficiency across Africa are uncertain given these challenges.

1. Reaping the
benefits
Taking a long-term
view on local
production
Page 2
Inside »
Zimbabwe
Politics, drought
and lack of funds
hamper recovery
Page 2
Cultivating
cassava
Humble tuber
finds itself at the
centre of attention
Page 3
Supplying cocoa
on a global scale
Talk grows of
a 1m tonne
shortage by 2020
Page 3
Cane poaching
Inefficient sugar
industry remains
under local and
global threat
www.ft.com/reports
FT SPECIAL REPORT
African Farming
Wednesday January 22 2014 www.ft.com/reports | @ftreports
T
he development of higher-
yielding cereal seeds and an
exceptional expansion in the
use of irrigation, fertilisers
and pesticides half a century
ago led to such a big jump in farm
productivity in countries such as
India and Mexico that William Gaud,
a US aid policy maker, said the world
was witnessing the “makings of a new
revolution”.
“It is not a violent red revolution
like that of the Soviets, nor is it a
white revolution like that of the Shah
of Iran,” Mr Gaud said in a speech in
1968. “I call it the green revolution,”
he added, coining a term that has
enjoyed continuing currency.
But Africa largely missed out on
the green revolution. It still does. The
African Union has labelled 2014 the
“Year of Agriculture and Food Secu-
rity” with the hope of triggering a
second green revolution on the conti-
nent. But many experts are not hold-
ing their breath after similar promises
have failed to deliver results.
Half a century after agricultural
productivity surged in Asia, eastern
Europe and Latin America, with
cereal yields jumping from 1 tonne a
hectare in 1960 to more than 3 tonnes
last year, Africa has yet to see a seri-
ous increase in production. Cereal
yields in sub-Saharan countries have
risen to only 1.3 tonnes per hectare,
up from 0.8 tonnes. This has left many
Africans poor, as the majority depend
on agriculture for their livelihood.
Throughout the 1980s and 1990s,
productivity in African farming failed
to keep pace with population growth.
Any increases reflected bringing more
land under cultivation rather than
increasing yields. As a result, domes-
tic food production per capita fell,
forcing African countries to rely on
imports, and spend billions of US dol-
lars each year buying commodities
such as wheat, sugar and rice from
international trading houses.
The over-reliance on food imports
put countries against the wall once
wholesale prices surged. The 2007-08
food crisis – the first in three decades
– which saw record prices for rice and
wheat, triggered riots in several Afri-
can countries, including protests in
Nigeria and Senegal.
The 2007-08 crisis had a positive
effect, however: it put agriculture
back on the African – and interna-
tional – agenda. Some countries in the
region have signed up to the 2003 Afri-
can Union’s Comprehensive Africa
Agriculture Development Programme.
But that has only gained traction
recently. The aim of the programme is
to devote 10 per cent of the budget to
farming and reduce poverty.
Countries such as Rwanda, Ethiopia
and Ghana are making strong
progress in agriculture. But others,
such as Nigeria, are still catching up.
Akinwumi Adesina, Nigeria’s US-
educated agriculture minister, told an
audience in New York recently:
“Nigeria was food self-sufficient in the
1960s and well-known for its global
position in major agricultural com-
modities.” Then something changed.
“We found oil and became too
dependent on it. Nigeria soon [became
a net food importer, spending] on
average $11bn [a year] on wheat, rice,
sugar and fish alone.”
Farmers, agronomists and develop-
ment experts say that new technology
will not bring radical transformation
on its own, particularly in the short
term. Quicker gains can result from
improving access to markets, trans-
port and storage, which will sharply
reduce the amount of food that rots
every year between fields and mar-
kets.
Experts also believe Africa could
make quick wins making more of
underused technologies, particularly
irrigation and chemical fertilisers.
A continent
still in search
of a green
revolution
Boosting agricultural productivity is high on the
African Union’s agenda, but self-sufficiency
seems a long way off, writes Javier Blas Harvest festival: large­scale farms, such as this one in Kenya, are rare in Africa, but they help lower the cost of food Bloomberg
‘We found oil and became
too dependent on it’
Akinwumi Adesina,
Nigeria’s agriculture minister
On FT.com »

2. 2 ★ FINANCIAL TIMES WEDNESDAY JANUARY 22 2014
African Farming
Javier Blas
Africa editor
Emiko Terazono
Online commodities editor
Scheherazade Daneshkhu
Consumer industries editor
Katrina Manson
East Africa correspondent
Tony Hawkins
Harare correspondent
Valentina Romei
Statistics journalist
Chris Campbell
Graphic artist
Aban Contractor
Commissioning editor
Andy Mears
Picture editor
Steven Bird
Designer
For advertising, contact
Mark Carwardine on
+44 (0)20 7873 4880,
mark.carwardine@ft.com or
David Applefield, special
projects representative
(Africa), on
+33 660 69 48 57,
david@paris-anglo.com
All FT Reports are available
on FT.com at
ft.com/reports
Follow us on Twitter at
@ftreports
Contributors »
In 2013, 13 years after the
launch of President Robert
Mugabe’s fast-track land
reform programme, Zimba-
bwe’s farmers produced less
than half the 4.2m tonnes of
output achieved in the peak
year of 2000.
Although production is 25
per cent above the trough
year of 2008, there has been
no significant growth in the
past three years, other than
in tobacco.
Supporters of land reset-
tlement, in which some
5,000 (mostly) white farmers
were evicted and replaced
by 300,000 black families
(about 1.5m people) insist
that the lack of growth is
partly because the govern-
ment and banks failed to
finance input purchases by
the “new” farmers.
There is some truth in
this, as illustrated by the
recovery in tobacco produc-
tion where the number of
smallholder farmers has
increased to 91,000 from no
more than 10,000 six years
ago.
Consequently, tobacco
production has trebled to
164m kg since 2008,
although it will take at
least three years – possibly
longer – to return to its
peak of 236m kg in 2000.
Many of these new grow-
ers do not rely on the
banks, because they are
financed on a contract basis
by tobacco merchants, but
even this relative success
story is looking fragile
because merchants, espe-
cially the bigger buyers
from China, prefer to deal
with medium-to-large-scale
growers with at least 10
hectares under tobacco.
Chinese buyers pay pre-
mium prices ($7.8/kg
against a national average
price of $5.6/kg) for leaf
grades produced mostly by
the larger-scale growers.
Last year China bought
just over half the Zimbabwe
export crop by value
($426m) and 38 per cent by
volume, making it easily
the chief export market.
The second largest buyer
was Belgium, which took
26m kgs of leaf – 18 per cent
of the crop.
Tobacco’s partial recov-
ery, however, is scant con-
solation for the steep
decline in grain production
– maize down 60 per cent to
800,000 tonnes and wheat
collapsing to a mere 25,000
tonnes from 250,000. Food
and livestock production
(excluding beef) slumped
from 3m tonnes in 2000 to
1.2m tonnes 13 years later.
Once described as the
regional breadbasket – an
exaggeration since South
Africa was almost always a
much larger producer and
exporter – Zimbabwe now
imports some $750m of food
each year, or about 12 per
cent of total imports.
In the 1980s and 1990s
Zimbabwe exported maize
to its regional neighbours,
especially Zambia, which
was chronically short of
food. Today, the boot is on
the other foot, with Zimba-
bwe importing 150,000
tonnes of maize from Zam-
bia – which last year pro-
duced more than 2m
tonnes, compared with Zim-
babwe’s 800,000 – and a fur-
ther 150,000 tonnes from
South Africa. Humanitarian
agencies reckon Zimbabwe
will need to provide food
aid to 2.2m people this year
– about 16 per cent of the
population.
Charles Taffs, president
of the Commercial Farmers
Union, is gloomy about the
industry’s short-term pros-
pects, dismissing official
forecasts of 9 per cent
growth in 2014.
“Because of the persistent
liquidity crunch, we could
not get money to purchase
inputs and this means we
are likely to have a worse
farming season than last
year,” he says, predicting
that only tobacco produc-
tion is likely to increase
this year.
Agricultural experts say
Zambia’s strong agricul-
tural rebound shows that
Zimbabwe’s farming indus-
try can recover, given the
right policies and reason-
able climatic conditions.
But solving the liquidity
crisis that has developed
since dollarisation in 2009 is
contingent upon a radical
improvement in the coun-
try’s balance-of-payments
and external debt situa-
tions, which will take years
to overcome.
Even if they had the
resources to lend, banks
would be constrained by the
absence of collateral, be-
cause few farmers have
individual tenure rights.
In a drought-prone region,
water supply is a serious,
and worsening, problem.
Patrick Chinamasa, finance
minister, says that only 36
per cent of the country’s
irrigation potential of
550,000 hectares is currently
being watered, partly
because “a significant
number” of schemes are
“non-functional”.
In his 2014 budget last
month, he said the country
needed to invest $580m in
irrigation, but in the budget
he was able to provide just
$10m.
Balance-of-payment, bud-
get and finance pressures,
as well as the projected
impact of climate change,
will constrain recovery. The
output levels of 2000 will
not be regained unless the
government is prepared to
take tough decisions on
land tenure, on farm financ-
ing, and genetically modi-
fied organism technologies,
which are banned.
At some point too, it will
have confronted the com-
petitiveness issue – Mr Chi-
namasa says it costs $1,200
to grow a hectare of wheat
in Zimbabwe against $230 in
Ukraine, $580 in Russia and
$600 in Australia. Dollar-
isation in 2009 solved the
country’s hyperinflationary
crisis but brought home the
uncomfortable reality that
Zimbabwe is a now a high-
cost location.
Taken together, these
challenges will take years
to overcome, with farmers’
organisations estimating it
will take a decade of dou-
ble-digit production growth
to regain 2000 output levels.
Farmers face slow recovery hampered
by politics, drought and lack of funding
E
very day, boats laden with
rice wind their way along the
Congo river, travelling the
1,700km that separate Kisan-
gani in the northeast of the
Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC)
from Kinshasa in the southwest.
The rice is grown in the Kisangani
region as part of an initiative spear-
headed by Heineken. The Dutch
brewer needs the rice for its Primus
beer, to give it the distinctive taste
favoured by the region’s drinkers.
Heineken uses 11,000 tonnes of rice
a year, and used to import all of it.
But after launching Projet Riz in 2009,
imports have fallen to 13 per cent.
From Côte d’Ivoire, where Mars, the
confectionery company, is involved in
cocoa production, to Mozambique,
where SABMiller, the British brewer
with South African roots, developed
the first commercial beer out of cas-
sava, food and drink companies sell-
ing to Africa have boosted local agri-
cultural production in order to reap
the benefits of local sourcing.
“The local rice industry had disap-
peared,” says Siep Hiemstra,
Heineken’s president of Africa and
Middle East, referring to years of
political instability in the DRC that
led to agricultural decline.
“We kick-started local production
again and are now almost totally self-
sufficient. But if you do this thinking
it will be less work than importing,
you’d better not try, because it’s a
long journey and very difficult work.”
The DRC is one of the worst places
in which to operate, coming 181 out of
185 countries in the World Bank’s 2013
Doing Business Report. But for com-
panies taking the longer view, the
benefits of spurring local production
can outweigh the costs and hassle,
especially in countries where tariffs
push up the price of imports.
In some countries, governments
give tax breaks to companies that
source locally, allowing them to pass
on the lower cost to consumers. Price
can be decisive in wooing low-income
consumers to try branded products.
“Affordability is key to expanding the
customer base. Local sourcing may
give you the edge,” says Justin Sher-
rard, a global strategist at Rabobank,
the Netherlands-based lender that pro-
vides financing to farmers.
Local sourcing also acts as a natural
hedge against local currency deprecia-
tion. “If you can’t hedge the risk, then
the best way to minimise currency
volatility is to source locally as much
as possible,” says Nick Blazquez, Dia-
geo’s president of Africa, Turkey, Rus-
sia, central and eastern Europe. In the
process, the multinationals also sup-
port local agriculture and help to
enrich the community.
Projet Riz, part funded by the Neth-
erlands government, was not a total
success – in one of its five regions,
rice production fell, which the Euro-
pean Cooperative for Rural Develop-
ment attributed to poor implementa-
tion and a drought. But overall, it
brought a “revolution in smallholder
rice producers’ productivity and mar-
ket participation, resulting in the
improvement of livelihoods of an esti-
mated 42,000 smallholder households”,
according to the Brussels-based NGO.
Heineken turned to the non-profit
making organisation, as it has done in
other projects, to help with one of the
biggest challenges in the region – the
co-ordination of myriad smallholder
farms which, in the case of Projet Riz,
numbered 58,000. The key to getting
production off the ground is to limit
the risk to smallholders – who typi-
cally have only a few hectares of land
– by guaranteeing to buy their prod-
uct at a certain price. “I’m not inter-
ested in getting into farming – I’m
happy for others to develop that,”
says Mr Blazquez. “What we bring is
demand to the smallholder farmers.”
Diageo, the world’s biggest drinks
company by sales, best known for
Johnnie Walker whisky, Guinness
beer and Smirnoff vodka, sources 50
per cent of its local grain needs in
Africa and has a target of 70 per cent
by 2015.
“We can provide the investment and
resources to kick-start the process, to
ensure the right irrigation system is
in place and make the transportation
work,” says Mr Blazquez.
“We do it because it makes good
business sense.”
Global companies
benefit from taking
a long-term view
on local production
Food source Kick-starting thousands of small holdings with resources
and finance makes good business sense, writes Scheherazade Daneshkhu
‘[Without] money
to purchase inputs,
we are likely to have
a worse season
than last year’
Africa Asia
South
America
Prevalence of
undernourishment
% of population, 2011
Sub-Saharan
Africa**
World
East Asia
& Pacific**
Latin America
& Caribbean**
Middle East &
North Africa**
Europe &
Central Asia**
** Developing only
* Former Not all states shown
24.5
12.8
11.4
9.4
7.5
6.3
World cassava production
Tonnes (m), 2012
Caribbean 1
Central America 1
146 78
30
Cereal productivity
Kg per hectare (’000), 2012
0 20 40 60
Northern
America
South
America
Asia
Europe
Central
America
Oceania
Caribbean
Africa
Food price index
1990 95 2000 05 10 13
50
100
150
200
Zambia
(61)
Cen.
African Rep.
(60)
Congo
(30)
Burkina
Faso (92)
Lesotho (38)
Burundi (89)
Morocco
(24)
Botswana
(41)
Benin (41)
Tanzania
(72)
Angola
(68)
Niger
(82)
Mali (73)
Namibia
(39)
Nigeria
(23)
Equatorial
Guinea
(63)
Kenya
(69)
Sudan
(49*)
Malawi (71)
Gambia (75)
Egypt
(26)
Madagascar
(69)
Sierra
Leone
(58)
Guinea
(78)
Mozambique
(75)
Cameroon
(37)
Uganda
(72)
Guinea
Bissau
(78)
Ghana
(53)
Ivory
Coast
(35)
Somalia (64)
Algeria
(20)
Dem. Rep.
Congo
(56)
South
Africa
(9)
Djibouti
(73)
Senegal (69)
Mauritania
(50)
Tunisia (20)
Togo
(52)
South
Sudan
(n.a.)
Libya
(3)
Rwanda (89)
Chad
(62)
Gabon
(24)
Western
Sahara
(29)
Liberia
(60)
Ethiopia
(76)
Zimbabwe
(54)
Eritrea (73)
Swaziland
(27)
Prevalence of
undernourishment
% of population, 2011
(Figure in brackets is the
agricultural population as
% of total population, 2013)
Map key
15%-29%
30%-45%
More than 45%
Less than 15%
No data/n.a.
Sources: World Bank; FAO FT graphic
A hungry continent
Zimbabwe
It will take a decade
to regain pre-land
reform output levels,
says Tony Hawkins

3. FINANCIAL TIMES WEDNESDAY JANUARY 22 2014 ★ 3
Elijah Owusu, from the vil-
lage of Cashierkrom in
western Ghana, says his life
as a cocoa farmer is a lucra-
tive one.
But Mr Owusu, one of the
720,000 cocoa farmers in the
west African country,
acknowledges that life can
also be tough for many
farmers: “When there’s no
income, then nobody wants
to work in the farms”.
In Ghana and neighbour-
ing Ivory Coast – which
together produce almost 60
per cent of the world’s
cocoa supplies – cocoa has
been the principal earner of
foreign currency and the
cornerstone of the econo-
mies for decades.
However, poor returns for
farmers, urbanisation, com-
petition from other crops,
and climate change
threaten the supply of
cocoa. International choco-
late makers, cocoa traders
and processors are talking
about a 1m tonne “cocoa
deficit” in 2020.
The threat in Africa is
particularly acute, with ille-
gal miners offering lump
sum payments to buy cocoa
farmers’ land. In addition,
the average age of cocoa
growers is rising and yields
are falling as the trees age.
In Ghana, the govern-
ment is phasing out ferti-
liser and pesticide subsidies
for cocoa farmers.
In order to secure sup-
plies of cocoa, the challenge
for the multinational stake-
holders in the sector has
been to reach the small-
scale farmers who dominate
cocoa growing, helping
them enhance productivity
and, at the same time,
improve their livelihoods.
Mr Owusu is a village
elder of Cashierkrom, one
of the 36 cocoa growing
communities taking part in
a $1m three year project
run in partnership with the
Rainforest Alliance, an
environmental not-for-profit
group, Olam International,
agricultural traders, and
the Ghana Cocoa Board, the
state cocoa authority.
In West and Central
Africa – including Ivory
Coast, Ghana, Nigeria and
Cameroon – some 2m small-
scale farms are responsible
for more than 70 per cent of
world production.
With land in limited sup-
ply, increased harvests will
have to come from im-
proved yields on existing
farms, which cocoa experts
say are well below their
potential.
Compared with a theoreti-
cal maximum of 1.5 tonnes
per hectare, Ghana’s aver-
age yield is about 350kg-
400kg per ha, while Indone-
sia, the third largest cocoa
producer after Ivory Coast
and Ghana, produces about
800kg per ha, according to
TechnoServe, a develop-
ment NGO.
The RA-Olam programme
promotes environmentally
friendly cultivation, while
helping farmers develop
supplementary means to
increase their income –
especially between harvests
– such as keeping bees and
selling honey, or rearing
grass-cutter, a rabbit-like
large rodent that is a local
delicacy.
In addition, Olam pro-
vides zero interest loans,
free seedlings, and offers
farmers training in organi-
sational and business skills,
such as accountancy.
Mr Owusu says the train-
ing, which includes practi-
cal skills such as pruning,
has boosted his farm’s out-
put from about 4.5 tonnes to
more than 9 tonnes.
The initiative is part of
Singapore-based Olam’s
cocoa projects in Ghana,
which involves more than
15,000 farmers. In Nigeria
and the Ivory Coast, Olam
runs sustainability pro-
grammes, helping 50,000
growers with the support of
its customers, chocolatiers
Blommer and Nestlé and
Costco, the retailer.
“There is a lot of work to
be done by traders such as
us and chocolate manufac-
turers,” says Gurinder
Goindi, head of cocoa at
Olam Ghana.
Many other companies
also offer help to farmers.
This ranges from funding –
as growers often lack access
to capital – to providing fer-
tiliser and training, as well
education for children.
Numerous initiatives
involve trading companies
such as Armajaro, now part
of Ecom Agroindustrial,
Cargill and ADM; chocolate
makers such as Mondelez
and Mars; as well as donors
that include Germany’s GIZ
and the Bill & Melinda
Gates Foundation.
In fact, so many pro-
grammes have been
launched that a survey in
2012 by the International
Cocoa Organisation (ICCO),
the intergovernmental
group overseeing the sector,
counted 64 initiatives world-
wide on cocoa sustainabil-
ity, involving 60 agencies or
companies.
It noted the “proliferation
of mostly uncoordinated, at
times competing initiatives
in cocoa-producing coun-
tries”, adding that the out-
comes of these programmes
were “disjointed, often
without any involvement
with existing structures in
the countries”.
Laurent Pipitone at the
ICCO says the organisation
is pushing for more harmo-
nisation of the stakehold-
ers, including the certifica-
tion agencies such as RA,
UTZ, and Fairtrade.
Bill Guyton, president of
the World Cocoa Founda-
tion, the umbrella develop-
ment and sustainability
body with 110 companies
involved in the cocoa and
chocolate sectors, believes
that the existence of all
these projects is not neces-
sarily a bad thing. The WCF
participates globally in
various social, productivity,
and research initiatives,
which in Africa reach
400,000 farmers.
“I think the innovation
comes through different
projects where new ideas
are tested,” he says, adding
that when one group finds
something that works, oth-
ers can come together and
help widen the project on a
larger scale.
He also stresses the
importance of involving
local government agencies
and institutions.
“Private companies can’t
do it alone,” says Mr Guy-
ton.
Developing a sweet tooth
www.ft.com/african­farming
Initiatives abound to increase
yields and safeguard supplies
Cocoa
There is talk of a 1m
tonne shortage
in 2020, reports
Emiko Terazono
‘The innovation
comes through
different projects
where new ideas
are tested’
Mounting pressure: productivity must improve Reuters
S
tanding in his cassava field
under the blazing sun in
Mampong, central Ghana,
Elvis Opoku says he owes
much to the humble root.
Having started cultivating a five
acre pilot cassava field, the 27-year-old
farmer has moved on to grow 20 acres
of the starchy root, which has allowed
him to expand his poultry farm and
buy a store for his wife.
“I’m going on radio talk shows tell-
ing people about cassava farming,”
says Mr Opoku, who was chosen as
Ghana’s national cassava farmer of
the year in 2012. “My friends are also
showing a lot of interest and some
have switched from growing maize to
cassava,” he adds.
Mr Opoku is part of the growing
buzz surrounding cassava in Africa.
Although the virtually drought-proof
root vegetable feeds about 300m on
the continent and accounts for
40 per cent of the daily calorie intake
in seven countries, including Nigeria,
Ghana, Angola, and the Central
African Republic, it has been
neglected by governments and west-
ern donors.
However, governments have begun
to realise the huge potential for the
plant as a driver of rural develop-
ment.
The market for cassava’s commer-
cial and industrial use has started to
grow. Its root starch is now in
demand from food and beverage com-
panies for bread and beer production.
It can also be used in plywood and
pharmaceuticals, as well as feedstock
for the production of ethanol biofuel.
African and western governments
are spending millions of dollars trying
to improve production and create a
food supply chain around cassava.
For example, Mr Opoku was part of
a UN International Fund for Agricul-
tural Development’s $27.6m project
backed by Ghana’s ministry of food
and agriculture. In west and central
Africa, IFAD is backing five multiyear
projects with total financing of $106m,
which directly benefit 1.6m house-
holds.
Other donors providing funding for
African cassava cultivation and
research projects include the Bill &
Melinda Gates Foundation, the US
Agency for International Development
and the EU. All are funding research
and the training of farmers across the
continent.
In Ghana, where cassava has been
eaten as gari – fermented and ground
into granules similar to fine couscous
– or pounded into a mashed potato-
like consistency as fufu – eaten with
soups or sauces – it is slowly shedding
its image as a “poor man’s crop”.
Thanks to demand from interna-
tional brewers such as SABMiller and
Diageo, which have started to produce
cassava beer locally, as well as a push
among donors towards more efficient
food processing, the price for cassava
has risen sharply in Ghana, making it
an attractive proposition for growers.
The cassava price – commonly
traded in Ghana in units of “Kia”, the
full 5.4 tonne load of the Korean truck
– has risen sharply over the past few
years, says Akwasi Adjekum, the
co-ordinator for the government’s
root and tuber improvement and
marketing project funded by IFAD. A
Kia of cassava, which was almost
worthless during the years of glut in
2005-06, rose to Ghs760-800 in June last
year, and is currently about Ghs1,100.
“It’s becoming a growers’ market,”
says Mr Adjekum.
Apart from increasing food security
and helping rural incomes, one factor
driving increased demand for cassava
is the current high import price for
cereals. Cassava can be processed into
a high-quality flour that can partially
substitute for wheat flour.
In Nigeria, the world’s largest pro-
ducer of cassava, Akinwumi Adesina,
the country’s agriculture minister,
has been pushing for food self-suffi-
ciency.
The government has been trying to
improve processing capabilities and
has set an initial target of substitut-
ing imported wheat flour with 10 per
cent cassava flour.
Some commercial bakers are strug-
gling to meet the target and have cast
doubts on the long-term aim of 40 per
cent substitution, but it has created a
market for cassava growers.
While the starchy root is a hardy,
abundant crop that can be grown
almost everywhere in sub-Saharan
Africa and can be left in the ground
for up to 18 months until it is needed
for harvesting, cassava farming has
some challenges.
Fundamentally a small holder crop,
the planting has to be done manually
and does not lend itself to large-scale
mechanised farming. While yields can
be vastly improved by good agricul-
tural practices, large growers would
need many labourers to cover big
areas, whereas smaller family-owned
farms can have members of the family
do the planting.
Cassava also has a high water con-
tent and starts to degrade rapidly
after harvesting. It has to be proc-
essed within 48 hours of being lifted.
With many African countries riddled
with logistical issues including bad
roads, centralised processing is not a
viable option.
The Dutch Agricultural Develop-
ment & Trading Company, or Dadtco
offers a solution. It dispatches a
mobile unit with the processing equip-
ment to villages, so farmers only have
to harvest the cassava crop when it
arrives.
Dadtco works with SABMiller in
Mozambique, helping the brewer pro-
cure raw cassava from farmers. The
company, which started operations in
2004, is also active in Nigeria and
Ghana.
Peter Bolt, Dadtco’s chief executive,
says: “Our target is to roll out in 26 or
27 sub-Saharan countries over the
next few years.”
He adds: “We strongly believe in a
big future for cassava in Africa.”
Humble tuber finds itself the centre of attention
Cassava No longer just a subsistence crop, commercial opportunities are growing for this drought-resistant root, writes Emiko Terazono
‘[The cassava business] is
becoming a growers’
market’
Cultivating roots: women working in a grinding mill in the Oru­Ijebu community, southwest Nigeria. The country is the largest producer of cassava in the world Reuters
African Farming

4. 4 ★ FINANCIAL TIMES WEDNESDAY JANUARY 22 2014