Cassava, a 21st Century Staple Crop: How can Nigeria Harness Its Enormous Trade Potentials?

Nigeria possesses enormous potentials in the agricultural sector especially in the cassava sub-sector. This paper reviews the cassava production, consumption and utilization along its value chain globally. The paper focuses on Nigeria’s cassava trade outlook and how it can compete favourably with other exporting nations while examining its prospects, strategies for development and challenges

the cassava sub-sector is facing in recent time. Cassava production in Nigeria reached the highest level with an estimated value of 59 million and accounted for 20.4% world share in 2017. Egypt is the only African country ranked among the top ten highest exporters of cassava in the world with export value of $20.7 million and also the highest cassava exporter in Africa even though not among

the highest producers of cassava in Africa and globally. Cassava is unarguably the most important root crop in Nigeria in terms of consumption. As the highest producer of cassava in the world, Nigeria recorded a small total export value ($1.25million) when compared to other leading producers like Thailand with highest export value of $1.19billion in 2017. Nigeria and the rest of African nations are yet to harness the great trade possibilities in the cassava sub-sector when compared to other regions (like Asia and North America) of the world.