Partnership with China to transform cassava farming and enhance food security in Nigeria

By adopting modern farming techniques and improved cassava varieties, more local farmers believe that the partnership between Chinese and Nigerian agencies could be transformative with the introduction of mechanization on cassava farms. by Olatunji Saliu ABUJA, July 27 (Xinhua) — For the past two decades, Nigerian farmer Bala Yusuf has tended with meticulous care the cassava farm, his family’s main source of livelihood. Yusuf, now aged 46 and father of five, begins each day’s work together with his wife before sunrise in Kuje, a low-income suburb of Abuja, the Nigerian capital, by peeling cassava tubers and soaking them in water for several hours to remove their bitterness. At midday, his wife gets busy, cooking the tubers over a crackling fire, transforming them into a soft, tender meal. Then their eldest son takes the cooked cassava to the local market and earns about 10,000 nairas (6 U.S. dollars) daily from selling the food. That’s the only source of income for the whole ...