By Dele Sobowale

The first part of this series on cassava bread appeared on Monday last week; it could not have come at a better time.  On Wednesday, June 11, 2012, after the Federal Executive Council, FEC, meeting, the Minister of Finance, Dr Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, announced that President Goodluck Jonathan had approved two major incentives aimed at encouraging the production of cassava in the country.

First the Federal government had “agreed to make the importation of cassava-enhancing enzymes into the country duty-free. Second, the duty on wheat flour will be increased from 35% to 65%. These are necessary measures in the right direction; not insufficient as will be shown presently.

Furthermore, cassava flour is not ideally suited for bread making; for that matter not all types of wheat are suitable for bread baking. That is why certain types of wheat flour are used for biscuits, cakes, etc. Cassava flour without glutamine would yield a brittle kind of loaf which crumbles easily, cannot be sliced and certainly unfit for sandwiches.

Given the massive amount of bread consumed in this nation of 160 million people, we will either have to invest heavily in glutamine factories or import millions of tones of it. To the best of my knowledge, nobody has addressed this critical issue.

It is all well and good for UTC to carry out a pilot project; bring in the glutamine; produce the nice tasting bread and serve to the President – very hot. But, it amounts to dishonesty not to acknowledge the process which produced the bread or to pretend that any Nigerian bakery can adapt to cassava flour.

Nothing can be further from the truth. In fact giving someone cold cassava bread would almost amount to giving
the child who asked for bread stone according to the Biblical story. It becomes that hard and solid and so cassava bread cannot be preserved for long without further additives.

The typical Nigerian bakery is designed to bake conventional bread using wheat flour. In order to adapt to cassava flour, major changes would have to be made; all the staff would have to be trained and the cost structure would have to be reconsidered. This is a monumental undertaking requiring several years of planning – if the entire initiative is not going to end up in fiasco; leaving us at a greater disadvantage than when we started.

But, the main obstacle is still the production of cassava in sufficient quantities to replace the massive wheat import. Diversion of cassava on such a massive scale to bread making, without any alternative tuber or grain to fill the gap, will disrupt the food chain of most Nigerians and create hardship until such a time as the country is able to produce surplus cassava.

Unfortunately, massive increase in cassava production is not feasible at the moment. Most of the nation’s irrigation systems which can provide some measure of controlled water supply have broken down. For instance the Goronyo Fadama dam in Sokoto state which collapsed two years ago is still not functioning; the Bakolori dam project in Zamfara state is also in a state of disrepair, Kainji dam is suffering from water shortage etc.

One thing the SURE document circulated by the Federal Minister of Finance, before it became clear, even to her, that there was no subsidy, only fraud, was that it listed some of the dams needing repairs. However, even when they operated optimally, the nation was still incapable of growing enough cassava as to make it “dirt cheap”.

One of the basic strengths of the United States, Canada and the major wheat producers lies in the fact that they have so much capacity to produce they even keep million of hectares out of cultivation. Nigeria is so far from that stage of development such that it will be futile to attempt the conversion now.

If our capacity to produce sufficient cassava in the short term – defined as five years – is not enough reason to shelve the idea for now; the widespread violence in the North – code named Boko Haram – is certain to result in massive food shortage next year.

With over 75% of the nation’s agricultural land in the north; and, with the largest food producers under siege, it is unlikely that the harvest next year will be anywhere near anything we have experienced in the past. Not only will productivity be lower; post harvest losses will escalate as farmers have continued to abandon farms and run for cover.

The shake-up in the top levels of security officers will not have an immediate impact; and even if it does, those fleeing for their lives will not be in a hurry to return. Instead of a cassava surplus, shortage of cassava, as well, as other food items, seems more imminent.

When general food crisis occurs, people tend to consume more carbohydrates than proteins because the latter is more expensive. So the pressure on cassava and yams will be more intense. There will be no surplus for bread.

At the risk of being labeled prophet of doom, there is another variable to ponder. Climate change and the record level rainfall expected this year. In most places, especially areas benefitting from irrigation, the debris from last year’ destruction have not yet been fully cleared and we are into another year of heavy torrential downpours.

Even the greatest optimist will have to admit that the near term is not hopeful. There will be water quite alright and it will even be plentiful. But, it will neither be controllable nor controlled. So we are at the mercy of nature for the year 2012 and the harvest for 2013.

The Minister of Agriculture deserves a great deal of credit for being the only one in the cabinet of President Jonathan drawing attention to the looming food crisis – famine really. He also should be commended for the initiative designed to reduce our unsustainable food import bill — especially as the price of crude oil keeps dropping.

God knows we need the relief that lower food import bill will provide for this country, particularly if it means we can increase our food output and move towards self-sufficiency. But, cassava bread is an idea whose time has not yet arrived; and will not arrive until we have cassava virtually littering the roads of Nigeria.

In addition to that, we need to work out all the technical details and be sure that we can afford the cost of conversion of our mills and bakeries nationwide. Otherwise, we will end up with no bread at all – cassava or wheat.

CONSEQUENCES OF THE NEW INCENTIVES

As stated above, the Federal government rolled out two new incentives to foster its promotion of cassava bread as a substitute for wheat bread. Those two measures are the barest minimum interventions government can make; because without them cassava bread policy will soon become a joke – just as the wheat programme became an everlasting embarrassment to Babangida.

If there is one thing most government measures have in common, apart from insincerity in execution and corruption, it is the failure to understand that ideas which are feasible in theory require technicians to translate them into reality.

The Ministries of Agriculture at Federal and States’ levels have been occupied by academicians selected from various universities; they have uniformly failed to lift the production levels of crops because few of them ever owned or managed a farm before. Unlike the controlled environment of university farm, the typical Nigerian farm, even at its best, can only be described as organized chaos. Very little is under control. So results are often unpredictable.

In the same week that government announced the new measures, Nigeria Cassava Growers Association, promised to increase the national output of cassava to 44 million tones annually; at an unspecified date. The problems with that are two-fold. Even 44 million tones of cassava, if made into bread is insufficient for 167 million people. Second, people don’t eat “in the long run”; they must have food now.

Finally, increasing import tariff on wheat will only encourage smuggling. The revenue expected might never be received. And, if received might be embezzled instead of going to promote cassava output.