The Jal Agricultural Enterprise in Niger on Tuesday said that it has concluded arrangements to establish cassava starch and glucose syrup processing industry in Minna.
Malam Jamiu Lawal, chairman of the agri-business investment company, made this known in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Minna.
“This cassava agri-business investment is aimed at organising clusters of 5,000 farmers spread across 20 Local Government areas of Niger state reputed for massive cassava tuber production,’’ he said.
Lawal said that the four year plan from 2018 would see the farmers cultivating 5,000 hectares of land for production of 200,000 metric tons of cassava tubers worth N2.8 billion for an industrial end user.
According to him, the industry which will start full operations in 2021 will use cassava for production of starch and later glucose syrup.
He explained that cassava tubers that would be produced in the first, second and third year would be converted into garri and starch by the small scale cassava processing enterprises to be established in each of the participating local government areas.
The chairman of the company said that launching into glucose syrup production at the beginning of the fourth year (2021) would be when production of 200,000 metric tons of cassava tubers must have been achieved.
He noted that Nigeria’s domestic annual market demand estimated at 500,000 metric tons value addition of cassava tubers to cassava starch was valued at N125 billion at guarantee minimum price of N250,000 per ton.
Lawal said that the combined installed capacity of the two major cassava starch production companies in Nigeria, Nigeria Starch Mill, Ihiala in Anambra and Manta Food in Akure with others in the Southern part of the country stood at 30,000 metric tons per annum.
He said that the quantity was yet to meet the country’s domestic annual market demand of 500,000 metric tons per annum. (NAN)
