The agricultural mechanisation initiative being championed by the African Agricultural Technology Foundation (AATF), will ultimately bring about food security in Nigeria.

The AATF was founded in 2003 with the mandate to advance and enhance agricultural mechanisation through sourcing for technology from local and foreign bases.

The foundation’s pilot scheme is on cassava mechanisation and agro-processing project. This is in tandem with President Goodluck Jonathan administration’s agenda of making cassava an essential ingredient for bakery business in the country.

In 2012, the AATF selected Nigeria and Zambia for the pilot scheme of cassava mechanisation due to the fact that cassava is a major staple food crop in the two countries. The cassava mechanisation pilot scheme will run for three years in the two countries.

Kwara state has equally been selected as a major stakeholder and berthing port for the Africa Agricultural Technology Foundation to establish its pilot scheme in cassava mechanisation and agro-processing which is an experiment that will run for three years. This pilot scheme is a direct intervention of the AATF in cassava mechanisation and agro-processing project.

A total of 150 farmers selected from Kwara (100) and Osun (50) will participate in the pilot scheme, flagged off at the National Centre for Agricultural Mechanisation (NCAM), Ilorin, on July 4, 2013.

The selected farmers will be empowered through exposure to modern farming practices; provision of  packages designed to provide them free plugging and harrowing activities, cassava stem cuttings, fertiliser and herbicides and in addition, mechanise the planting, fertiliser application and spraying of the farms.

Similarly, at harvest time, cassava harvesters already on ground would be deployed to benefiting farms at no cost to the farmers.

The goal of the scheme is to enhance the contribution of cassava production and processing technologies to sustainable improvement in food securities, incomes and livelihoods of farmers, processors and marketers in the cassava sector.

This scheme is planned to achieve success through upgrading and expanding traditional planting, harvesting and processing which will contribute to the development of competitive cassava commodity value chains for a reliable supply of processed products for food and industrial use.

The AATF, having secured a mechanism for negotiating royalty free access and delivery of agricultural technologies on behalf of sub-Saharan Africa, especially farmers, has the capacity to bring in technologies from all over the world, both from public and private institutions. The AATF has also formed partnership for the development and deployment of technologies for local use.

On the marketing of cassava products, presently, the policy implementation of the federal government of Nigeria has created a new market for cassava products. It is now compulsory 40 per cent cassava flour and 60 percent wheat flour for bread production. This means that already, there is a market for cassava products if this policy is enforced with all seriousness.

Cassava is a tuber crop that has many end-products derivable from it. These products include home-use products like garri and fufu as well as industrial products such as starch, chips for livestock feeds and a host of others. If efficiently managed, these products will earn farmers and the nation a great wealth.

At the official inauguration of the cassava mechanisation and agro-processing project (CAMAP), the minister of Agriculture and Food Security, Dr Akinwunmi Adesina, made a startling revelation that Nigeria spends the whopping sum of N360 billion to import rice annually.

Akinwumi further disclosed that the nation spends N217 billion to import sugar  and N97 billion of fish annually.

He noted that the nation’s food import bill is too high, adding that the country spends a lot of money to import commodities that can be abundantly produced in the country.

"These acts are hurting Farmers, displacing local production and creating unemployment", he said.

The minister said, the CAMAP project is capable of generating about 600,000 metric tons of raw cassava roots from farmers and an expanded market of over 150,000 metric tons of high quality cassava flour from agro processor when fully implemented.

In his remarks, the national chairman of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Alhaji Bamanga Tukur, who chaired the occasion, said that Africa has no reason to be poor.

He lamented that the Nigerian small holder farmers have suffered and faced enormous challenges due to lack of access to inputs and tools to advance their efforts from subsistence farming to commercial production.

Tukur, thus urged governments and rich individuals in Africa and Nigeria in particular, to support organisations like the African Agriculture Technology Foundation, AATF, who he said are making strides to support agriculture through access to appropriate technology capable to guarantee better yields for Nigerian farmers.

Also speaking, the executive director of National Centre for Agricultural Mechanisation (NCAM), Engineer Ike Azogu, said Cassava mechanisation and agro-processing project (CAMAP) is expected to increase cassava yield from the present average of less than 15 tons per hectare to about 30 tons per hectare with minimal manual labour by farmers.

 Ike Azogu, also said the CAMAP initiative is a further boost to the government policy of cassava flour inclusion in wheat flour.

The director, who said the project would create employment opportunities for unemployed youth, added that it would improve cassava competitiveness in the country.

He therefore appealed to the federal, state and local governments, including NGOs to buy into the project so that it can be replicated in all cassava growing states of the country.

Also speaking at the occasion, Governor Abdulfatah Ahmed of Kwara state, said 100 cassava farmers in the state and 50 in Osun state are benefitting from the project, and commended the AATF and its  partners on successes already recorded.