How Can Nigeria Cassava Growers Benefit From The Starch Technology Research Unit

2012-03-18T11:58:00.000-07:00

          Cassava (Manihot esculent Crantz) or tapioca is a perennial plant widely grown in many tropical countries, including Thailand as one of the most important commercial crops. At present, there are 1 million hectares devoted to cassava planting in Thailand producing annually 20 million tons of roots.

        Since cassava roots contain high starch content, but low quantity of impurities such as protein and lipid, they are recognized as an excellent source of pure starch suitable for a wide range of applications. The most important characteristics of cassava starch are odorless, paste clarity, and stickiness. These remarkable characteristics of cassava starch are enable to be conveniently and readily blended with other flavoring and coloring agents. Cassava is not only used as a food security, but it is also served as a source of chemical reagent, feed stock of all fermentation processes, and adhesive substance.

          The various applications of cassava starch are appealing to the industrial sector for starch manufacturing process and have been supported by Thai government as an important agro-industrial product. As a result, the Cassava Starch Technology Research Unit was established in 1995 by the cooperation between the government sectors including the National Center for Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology (BIOTEC), the National Science and Technology Development Agency (NSTDA), Kasetsart University and the private sector including the Thai Tapioca Development Institute (TTDI). The Unit is located at Kasetsart Agricultural and Agro-Industrial Product Improvement Institute (KAPI), Kasetsart University.

          This is actually what prompts us to write this information. To see how the government can also encourage the cassava producers in the state to establish a kind of factory where they (the government) will partner with co-operatives to run the affairs of the company. Like the one described above. If assisted:-

The Unit aims to be the Center of Excellence of

- Cassava and starch properties
- Cassava starch process
- Cassava starch modification
- Cassava and starch application

And its goals shall be; to support the industrial sectors in order to strengthen their competitiveness in the world market. Our missions include:
- To conduct research and development on cassava starch property, processing, modification and industrial application
- To coordinate technology between producers and users
- To collect and distribute information, transfer technology, support technical service and undertake joint research with related agencies and the private sectors.

Darkness falls! The Truth Is Being Revealled ...

2012-03-18T11:18:00.000-07:00

It is discouraging, unpalatable, utterly ridiculous and uncompromising to say the least for any human created by the merciful father the most High, not to truthfully boast or rather meticulously pronounce in the mist of his bosom friends that actually I am a Nigerian. It is preposterous in its entirety for able bodied men to begin denying their fatherland.

Sometime in October last year, October first to be precise, when on my way to a special business trip I met my old school mate at the Danbatta- in Oganye Lanpaye senatorial district. Please let me remember what ensued that faithful day! Yes after embracing my friend, Mr. Felix, whom I usually call Felly for short; I subsequently wish him Happy Independent Day He looked at me scornfully and sorrowfully too and ask me once again “what do you just say?” Please, just follow in the discussions that follow afterwards:-

Me: Mr. Felly, I said happy independent Day Celebration

Mr. Felly: It is shocking and embarrassing that since we met last in the year 1960, you have still not changed this your belief and unguided principles and utterances to say the least.

ME: How do you mean my friend?

Mr. Felly: is it not disheartening to note Mr. Bosom friend that since independence in 1960, nothing tangible has been noticed done? This land that has been so blessed by God with more than enough human resources and natural endowment begging to be milked or tapped from the nooks and cranny of the country (Nigeria).

Is it not frustrating my friend to note that there are still graduates who are roaming the streets of the country without good employment? For the past years, these ones cannot afford for themselves three square meals a day; The citizens cannot sleep peacefully for the sake of whether they can be the next victims to be attacked by the men of the underworld. This means that our security is loosed. The situation has become so porous that even the truth has been thrown to the wind. A country where the poor is getting poorer everyday, the middle class has been wiped completely wiped out. Consequently, it is now the game between the upper class and the lower class. No more middle class in the setting of Nigeria. The most important and most cherished class of people “the farmers” are even left to wroth away just like a rotten mango. Our class in the society (those in the grass-root) is gradually being wiped away. Soon there will be no segment name those in the grass root anymore. All these are happening to us in the country we call our fathers land.

PAGE 7

ME: felly! Felly! Stop! Stop it….. I shouted at him this is a fine country. At least, we can still send our children to school, buy things from the market. Whether you like it or not, in the last day every one of us will still go to six feet below the ground surface. Whether those in the grass root now being gradually wipe away, those in the middle class that is no more and even those in the upper class who thought they own the world, will all go there.

Mr. Felly: No matter what kind of intimidation I may face, I will not hesitate to mention that there is a sector of the economy that must not be left to blow away just like chaff. The abandoned sector, which they has failed to develop for many years now. The

Agriculture sector has really suffered. Farmers were in these times; treated like people being affected by leprosy. They forget to remember that without farmers, the nation does not exist. Even when a program is set up to assist the farmers, it is being hijacked by the rich and well to do, in the society (those in the upper class). Can the leaders tell the masses why Nigeria is among the nations suffering from food shortage today? Is it because the farmers are not ready to produce food for their people to eat? Or is it that the country don’t have good and productive land to farm in? The fact is that Nigeria has been said to be the largest single cassava producer in the world. The question is, is Nigeria cassava appreciated in the world market? If no, Why?

ME: Hmm… I am left of words but do you not know that we are still better off than those in Sudan, Chad, Guinea Bissau, or even Cameroon? Why can’t you also see it from this angle?

Mr. Felly: My old friend, I tell you. If you continue to look at it like this for the next few years to come, it might be considered that you are in the dark. People will say that darkness has fallen on you; Mr. Felly said to me “my old friend, you look like a Bakassi Person. People that has been attached to the Cameroon.”

I tell you; when I left my friend Felly, I started to realize the truth about what he has just told me. From the discussion, I have learnt that we in the grass root have been trampled upon for a very long time now. The widow has been left unkempt for. The children have not been given their place of things, you cannot distinguish the graduate from the illiterate, and the farmers who are the pillars of the nation are automatically treated like slaves in their own fathers land. No! I won’t be a party to it anymore. I will join the train the Gofta train; those in this train has made up their minds to fight the cause of those intimidated and cheated on. Those on whose expense the rich gets richer; and the powerful get on stronger. We in Gofta say no to human inhumanity to man.

Okada Farmers

How Can Nigeria Cassava Growers Benefit From The Starch Technology Research Unit

Darkness falls! The Truth Is Being Revealled ...