|
Project to add value to cassava
launched
Accra, July 10, Ghanadot/GNA – A four-year project on
cassava dubbed; Cassava- Adding Value For Africa (C:AVA),
aimed at boosting the incomes of small-scale African farmers
by linking them to new markets was launched in Accra on
Thursday.
The project is an initiative led by the University of
Greenwich’s Natural Resources Institute, United Kingdom, in
partnership with the Food Research Institute of Ghana.
The project, which would be implemented in Ghana and four
other African countries, is being sponsored by the Bill and
Melinda Gates Foundation.
Other beneficiary countries are Nigeria, Uganda, Tanzania
and Malawi.
The project would kick-start in Ghana, Nigeria and Tanzania
this year, while that of Uganda and Malawi would start next
year.
In Ghana, the Brong Ahafo and Volta Regions have been
selected to be
the project centres.
Dr. Nanam Tay Dziedzoave, C:AVA Country Manager, CSIR-Food
Research Institute, said the project was expected to assist
over 90,000 smallholder households to increase their income
levels and livelihoods by the end of
the period.
That, he said, would be achieved through the use of
innovative interventions to capacitate farmers, village
processing units and market intermediaries to competitively
deliver high quality cassava-based products to a well
sensitized market.
He said the C:AVA project sought to complement the IFAD-funded
Root and Tuber Improvement and Marketing Programme of the
Ministry of Food and Agriculture by focusing only on
cassava, with a view to maximizing achievements in cassava
sub-sector.
He therefore called on all primary actors of the chain,
facilitators and consumers, and policy makers to support the
project to achieve its objectives.
In a speech read for him, Prof. Dominic Fobih, Minister of
Education, Science and Sports, said the creation of an
adequate scientific and technological base was a necessary
condition for the medium and long term transformation of
Ghana.
He said the contribution of cassava and other root and tuber
crops to national agricultural GDP, which currently stood
about 43 per cent, justified the various investments being
made.
Prof. Fobih said in the face of escalating world food
prices, the time had come to produce and utilize “what we
want from what we have”.
He, however, challenged the managers and stakeholders in all
those interventions not only to ensure that the investments
brought significant benefit to the target beneficiaries and
the nation as a whole, but to also ensure that there was
proper integration and collaboration in the sector, to avoid
duplication and waste.
Mr. Ernest Debrah, Minister of Food and Agriculture, in a
speech read for him, said the Ministry was deliberating with
the stakeholders in the cassava industry as well as
representatives of flour milling companies on the
possibility of legislation for inclusion of high quality
cassava flour (HQCF) into wheat flour at the flour mills.
He said they were currently discussing acceptable inclusion
levels and modalities for developing capacity to meet the
demand that could be created by such legislation, as well as
mitigating any possible problems that might arise.
The Minister therefore urged C:AVA project management and
implementation teams to establish an objective way of
measuring the impact of the numerous strategies to improve
the implementation of future interventions.
Dr. Wisdom Plahar, Director, CSIR-Food Research Institute,
said since the inception of the Institute in 1963, it had
been in the forefront of post-harvest handling of cassava in
Ghana and it was gratifying that it had been chosen to lead
the implementation of the C:AVA project in the country.
He said the commitment, dedication, enthusiasm, and
purposeful drive with which previous projects had been
implemented would be applied to the C:AVA to successfully
achieve the objectives of the project.
GNA
|
