Reaping thebenefitsTaking a long-termview on localproductionPage 2

Inside »

ZimbabwePolitics, droughtand lack of fundshamper recoveryPage 2

CultivatingcassavaHumble tuberfinds itself at thecentre of attentionPage 3

Supplying cocoaon a global scaleTalk grows ofa 1m tonneshortage by 2020Page 3

Cane poachingInefficient sugarindustry remainsunder local andglobal threatwww.ft.com/reports

FT SPECIAL REPORT

African FarmingWednesday January 22 2014 www.ft.com/reports | @ftreports

The development of higher-yielding cereal seeds and anexceptional expansion in theuse of irrigation, fertilisersand pesticides half a century

ago led to such a big jump in farmproductivity in countries such asIndia and Mexico that William Gaud,a US aid policy maker, said the worldwas witnessing the “makings of a newrevolution”.

“It is not a violent red revolutionlike that of the Soviets, nor is it awhite revolution like that of the Shahof Iran,” Mr Gaud said in a speech in1968. “I call it the green revolution,”he added, coining a term that hasenjoyed continuing currency.

But Africa largely missed out onthe green revolution. It still does. TheAfrican Union has labelled 2014 the“Year of Agriculture and Food Secu-

rity” with the hope of triggering asecond green revolution on the conti-nent. But many experts are not hold-ing their breath after similar promiseshave failed to deliver results.

Half a century after agriculturalproductivity surged in Asia, easternEurope and Latin America, withcereal yields jumping from 1 tonne ahectare in 1960 to more than 3 tonneslast year, Africa has yet to see a seri-ous increase in production. Cerealyields in sub-Saharan countries haverisen to only 1.3 tonnes per hectare,up from 0.8 tonnes. This has left manyAfricans poor, as the majority dependon agriculture for their livelihood.

Throughout the 1980s and 1990s,productivity in African farming failedto keep pace with population growth.Any increases reflected bringing moreland under cultivation rather than

increasing yields. As a result, domes-tic food production per capita fell,forcing African countries to rely onimports, and spend billions of US dol-lars each year buying commoditiessuch as wheat, sugar and rice frominternational trading houses.

The over-reliance on food importsput countries against the wall oncewholesale prices surged. The 2007-08food crisis – the first in three decades– which saw record prices for rice and

wheat, triggered riots in several Afri-can countries, including protests inNigeria and Senegal.

The 2007-08 crisis had a positiveeffect, however: it put agricultureback on the African – and interna-tional – agenda. Some countries in theregion have signed up to the 2003 Afri-can Union’s Comprehensive AfricaAgriculture Development Programme.But that has only gained tractionrecently. The aim of the programme isto devote 10 per cent of the budget tofarming and reduce poverty.

Countries such as Rwanda, Ethiopiaand Ghana are making strongprogress in agriculture. But others,such as Nigeria, are still catching up.Akinwumi Adesina, Nigeria’s US-educated agriculture minister, told anaudience in New York recently:“Nigeria was food self-sufficient in the

1960s and well-known for its globalposition in major agricultural com-modities.” Then something changed.

“We found oil and became toodependent on it. Nigeria soon [becamea net food importer, spending] onaverage $11bn [a year] on wheat, rice,sugar and fish alone.”

Farmers, agronomists and develop-ment experts say that new technologywill not bring radical transformationon its own, particularly in the shortterm. Quicker gains can result fromimproving access to markets, trans-port and storage, which will sharplyreduce the amount of food that rotsevery year between fields and mar-kets.

Experts also believe Africa couldmake quick wins making more ofunderused technologies, particularlyirrigation and chemical fertilisers.

A continentstill in searchof a greenrevolutionBoosting agricultural productivity is high on theAfricanUnion’s agenda, but self-sufficiencyseems a longway off, writes Javier Blas Harvest festival: large­scale farms, such as this one in Kenya, are rare in Africa, but they help lower the cost of food Bloomberg

‘We found oil and becametoo dependent on it’

Akinwumi Adesina,Nigeria’s agriculture minister

On FT.com »

2 ★ FINANCIAL TIMES WEDNESDAY JANUARY 22 2014

African Farming

Javier BlasAfrica editor

Emiko TerazonoOnline commodities editor

Scheherazade DaneshkhuConsumer industries editor

Katrina MansonEast Africa correspondent

Tony HawkinsHarare correspondent

Valentina RomeiStatistics journalist

Chris CampbellGraphic artist

Aban ContractorCommissioning editor

Andy MearsPicture editor

Steven BirdDesigner

For advertising, contactMark Carwardine on+44 (0)20 7873 4880,mark.carwardine@ft.com orDavid Applefield, special

projects representative(Africa), on+33 660 69 48 57,david@paris-anglo.com

All FT Reports are availableon FT.com atft.com/reports

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In 2013, 13 years after thelaunch of President RobertMugabe’s fast-track landreform programme, Zimba-bwe’s farmers produced lessthan half the 4.2m tonnes ofoutput achieved in the peakyear of 2000.

Although production is 25per cent above the troughyear of 2008, there has beenno significant growth in thepast three years, other thanin tobacco.

Supporters of land reset-tlement, in which some5,000 (mostly) white farmerswere evicted and replacedby 300,000 black families(about 1.5m people) insistthat the lack of growth ispartly because the govern-ment and banks failed tofinance input purchases bythe “new” farmers.

There is some truth inthis, as illustrated by therecovery in tobacco produc-tion where the number ofsmallholder farmers hasincreased to 91,000 from nomore than 10,000 six yearsago.

Consequently, tobaccoproduction has trebled to164m kg since 2008,although it will take atleast three years – possiblylonger – to return to itspeak of 236m kg in 2000.

Many of these new grow-ers do not rely on thebanks, because they arefinanced on a contract basisby tobacco merchants, buteven this relative success

story is looking fragilebecause merchants, espe-cially the bigger buyersfrom China, prefer to dealwith medium-to-large-scalegrowers with at least 10hectares under tobacco.

Chinese buyers pay pre-mium prices ($7.8/kgagainst a national averageprice of $5.6/kg) for leafgrades produced mostly bythe larger-scale growers.

Last year China boughtjust over half the Zimbabweexport crop by value($426m) and 38 per cent byvolume, making it easilythe chief export market.The second largest buyerwas Belgium, which took26m kgs of leaf – 18 per centof the crop.

Tobacco’s partial recov-ery, however, is scant con-solation for the steepdecline in grain production– maize down 60 per cent to800,000 tonnes and wheatcollapsing to a mere 25,000tonnes from 250,000. Foodand livestock production(excluding beef) slumpedfrom 3m tonnes in 2000 to1.2m tonnes 13 years later.

Once described as theregional breadbasket – anexaggeration since SouthAfrica was almost always amuch larger producer andexporter – Zimbabwe nowimports some $750m of foodeach year, or about 12 percent of total imports.

In the 1980s and 1990sZimbabwe exported maizeto its regional neighbours,especially Zambia, whichwas chronically short offood. Today, the boot is onthe other foot, with Zimba-bwe importing 150,000tonnes of maize from Zam-bia – which last year pro-duced more than 2mtonnes, compared with Zim-

babwe’s 800,000 – and a fur-ther 150,000 tonnes fromSouth Africa. Humanitarianagencies reckon Zimbabwewill need to provide foodaid to 2.2m people this year– about 16 per cent of thepopulation.

Charles Taffs, presidentof the Commercial FarmersUnion, is gloomy about theindustry’s short-term pros-pects, dismissing officialforecasts of 9 per centgrowth in 2014.

“Because of the persistentliquidity crunch, we couldnot get money to purchaseinputs and this means weare likely to have a worsefarming season than lastyear,” he says, predictingthat only tobacco produc-tion is likely to increasethis year.

Agricultural experts sayZambia’s strong agricul-tural rebound shows thatZimbabwe’s farming indus-try can recover, given theright policies and reason-able climatic conditions.

But solving the liquiditycrisis that has developedsince dollarisation in 2009 iscontingent upon a radicalimprovement in the coun-try’s balance-of-paymentsand external debt situa-tions, which will take yearsto overcome.

Even if they had theresources to lend, banks

would be constrained by theabsence of collateral, be-cause few farmers haveindividual tenure rights.

In a drought-prone region,water supply is a serious,and worsening, problem.Patrick Chinamasa, financeminister, says that only 36per cent of the country’sirrigation potential of550,000 hectares is currentlybeing watered, partlybecause “a significantnumber” of schemes are“non-functional”.

In his 2014 budget lastmonth, he said the countryneeded to invest $580m inirrigation, but in the budgethe was able to provide just$10m.

Balance-of-payment, bud-get and finance pressures,as well as the projectedimpact of climate change,will constrain recovery. Theoutput levels of 2000 willnot be regained unless thegovernment is prepared totake tough decisions onland tenure, on farm financ-ing, and genetically modi-fied organism technologies,which are banned.

At some point too, it willhave confronted the com-petitiveness issue – Mr Chi-namasa says it costs $1,200to grow a hectare of wheatin Zimbabwe against $230 inUkraine, $580 in Russia and$600 in Australia. Dollar-isation in 2009 solved thecountry’s hyperinflationarycrisis but brought home theuncomfortable reality thatZimbabwe is a now a high-cost location.

Taken together, thesechallenges will take yearsto overcome, with farmers’organisations estimating itwill take a decade of dou-ble-digit production growthto regain 2000 output levels.

Farmers face slow recovery hamperedby politics, drought and lack of funding

Every day, boats laden withrice wind their way along theCongo river, travelling the1,700km that separate Kisan-gani in the northeast of the

Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC)from Kinshasa in the southwest.

The rice is grown in the Kisanganiregion as part of an initiative spear-headed by Heineken. The Dutchbrewer needs the rice for its Primusbeer, to give it the distinctive tastefavoured by the region’s drinkers.

Heineken uses 11,000 tonnes of ricea year, and used to import all of it.But after launching Projet Riz in 2009,imports have fallen to 13 per cent.

From Côte d’Ivoire, where Mars, theconfectionery company, is involved incocoa production, to Mozambique,where SABMiller, the British brewerwith South African roots, developedthe first commercial beer out of cas-sava, food and drink companies sell-ing to Africa have boosted local agri-cultural production in order to reapthe benefits of local sourcing.

“The local rice industry had disap-peared,” says Siep Hiemstra,Heineken’s president of Africa andMiddle East, referring to years ofpolitical instability in the DRC thatled to agricultural decline.

“We kick-started local productionagain and are now almost totally self-sufficient. But if you do this thinkingit will be less work than importing,you’d better not try, because it’s a

long journey and very difficult work.”The DRC is one of the worst places

in which to operate, coming 181 out of185 countries in the World Bank’s 2013Doing Business Report. But for com-panies taking the longer view, thebenefits of spurring local productioncan outweigh the costs and hassle,especially in countries where tariffspush up the price of imports.

In some countries, governmentsgive tax breaks to companies thatsource locally, allowing them to passon the lower cost to consumers. Pricecan be decisive in wooing low-incomeconsumers to try branded products.“Affordability is key to expanding thecustomer base. Local sourcing maygive you the edge,” says Justin Sher-rard, a global strategist at Rabobank,the Netherlands-based lender that pro-vides financing to farmers.

Local sourcing also acts as a naturalhedge against local currency deprecia-tion. “If you can’t hedge the risk, thenthe best way to minimise currencyvolatility is to source locally as muchas possible,” says Nick Blazquez, Dia-geo’s president of Africa, Turkey, Rus-sia, central and eastern Europe. In theprocess, the multinationals also sup-port local agriculture and help toenrich the community.

Projet Riz, part funded by the Neth-erlands government, was not a totalsuccess – in one of its five regions,rice production fell, which the Euro-pean Cooperative for Rural Develop-

ment attributed to poor implementa-tion and a drought. But overall, itbrought a “revolution in smallholderrice producers’ productivity and mar-ket participation, resulting in theimprovement of livelihoods of an esti-mated 42,000 smallholder households”,according to the Brussels-based NGO.

Heineken turned to the non-profitmaking organisation, as it has done inother projects, to help with one of thebiggest challenges in the region – theco-ordination of myriad smallholderfarms which, in the case of Projet Riz,numbered 58,000. The key to gettingproduction off the ground is to limitthe risk to smallholders – who typi-cally have only a few hectares of land– by guaranteeing to buy their prod-uct at a certain price. “I’m not inter-ested in getting into farming – I’mhappy for others to develop that,”says Mr Blazquez. “What we bring isdemand to the smallholder farmers.”

Diageo, the world’s biggest drinkscompany by sales, best known forJohnnie Walker whisky, Guinnessbeer and Smirnoff vodka, sources 50per cent of its local grain needs inAfrica and has a target of 70 per centby 2015.

“We can provide the investment andresources to kick-start the process, toensure the right irrigation system isin place and make the transportationwork,” says Mr Blazquez.

“We do it because it makes goodbusiness sense.”

Global companiesbenefit from takinga long-term viewon local production

Food source Kick-starting thousands of small holdingswith resourcesand financemakes good business sense, writes ScheherazadeDaneshkhu

‘[Without] moneyto purchase inputs,we are likely to havea worse seasonthan last year’

Africa Asia

SouthAmerica

Prevalence of undernourishment% of population, 2011

Sub-SaharanAfrica**

World

East Asia& Pacific**

Latin America& Caribbean**

Middle East &North Africa**

Europe &Central Asia**

** Developing only

* Former Not all states shown

24.5

12.8

11.4

9.4

7.5

6.3

World cassava productionTonnes (m), 2012

Caribbean 1

Central America 1

146 78

30

Cereal productivityKg per hectare (’000), 2012

0 20 40 60

NorthernAmerica

SouthAmerica

Asia

Europe

CentralAmerica

Oceania

Caribbean

Africa

Food price index

1990 95 2000 05 10 1350

100

150

200

Zambia(61)

Cen. African Rep.

(60)

Congo(30)

BurkinaFaso (92)

Lesotho (38)

Burundi (89)

Morocco(24)

Botswana(41)

Benin (41)

Tanzania(72)

Angola(68)

Niger(82)

Mali (73)

Namibia(39)

Nigeria(23)

EquatorialGuinea

(63)

Kenya(69)

Sudan(49*)

Malawi (71)

Gambia (75)

Egypt(26)

Madagascar(69)

SierraLeone(58)

Guinea(78)

Mozambique(75)

Cameroon(37)

Uganda(72)

GuineaBissau

(78)

Ghana(53)

IvoryCoast(35)

Somalia (64)

Algeria(20)

Dem. Rep.Congo(56)

SouthAfrica

(9)

Djibouti(73)

Senegal (69) Mauritania

(50)

Tunisia (20)

Togo(52)

SouthSudan (n.a.)

Libya(3)

Rwanda (89)

Chad(62)

Gabon(24)

WesternSahara

(29)

Liberia(60)

Ethiopia(76)

Zimbabwe(54)

Eritrea (73)

Swaziland(27)

Prevalence ofundernourishment % of population, 2011

(Figure in brackets is theagricultural population as% of total population, 2013)

Map key

15%-29%30%-45%More than 45%

Less than 15%

No data/n.a.

Sources: World Bank; FAO FT graphic

A hungry continent

Zimbabwe

It will take a decadeto regain pre-landreform output levels,says Tony Hawkins

FINANCIAL TIMES WEDNESDAY JANUARY 22 2014 ★ 3

Elijah Owusu, from the vil-lage of Cashierkrom inwestern Ghana, says his lifeas a cocoa farmer is a lucra-tive one.

But Mr Owusu, one of the720,000 cocoa farmers in thewest African country,acknowledges that life canalso be tough for manyfarmers: “When there’s noincome, then nobody wantsto work in the farms”.

In Ghana and neighbour-ing Ivory Coast – whichtogether produce almost 60per cent of the world’scocoa supplies – cocoa hasbeen the principal earner offoreign currency and thecornerstone of the econo-mies for decades.

However, poor returns forfarmers, urbanisation, com-petition from other crops,and climate changethreaten the supply ofcocoa. International choco-late makers, cocoa tradersand processors are talkingabout a 1m tonne “cocoadeficit” in 2020.

The threat in Africa isparticularly acute, with ille-gal miners offering lumpsum payments to buy cocoafarmers’ land. In addition,the average age of cocoagrowers is rising and yieldsare falling as the trees age.

In Ghana, the govern-ment is phasing out ferti-liser and pesticide subsidiesfor cocoa farmers.

In order to secure sup-plies of cocoa, the challengefor the multinational stake-holders in the sector hasbeen to reach the small-scale farmers who dominatecocoa growing, helpingthem enhance productivityand, at the same time,improve their livelihoods.

Mr Owusu is a villageelder of Cashierkrom, oneof the 36 cocoa growingcommunities taking part ina $1m three year projectrun in partnership with theRainforest Alliance, anenvironmental not-for-profitgroup, Olam International,agricultural traders, and

the Ghana Cocoa Board, thestate cocoa authority.

In West and CentralAfrica – including IvoryCoast, Ghana, Nigeria andCameroon – some 2m small-scale farms are responsiblefor more than 70 per cent ofworld production.

With land in limited sup-ply, increased harvests willhave to come from im-proved yields on existingfarms, which cocoa expertssay are well below theirpotential.

Compared with a theoreti-cal maximum of 1.5 tonnesper hectare, Ghana’s aver-age yield is about 350kg-400kg per ha, while Indone-sia, the third largest cocoaproducer after Ivory Coastand Ghana, produces about800kg per ha, according toTechnoServe, a develop-ment NGO.

The RA-Olam programmepromotes environmentallyfriendly cultivation, whilehelping farmers developsupplementary means toincrease their income –especially between harvests– such as keeping bees andselling honey, or rearinggrass-cutter, a rabbit-likelarge rodent that is a localdelicacy.

In addition, Olam pro-vides zero interest loans,free seedlings, and offersfarmers training in organi-

sational and business skills,such as accountancy.

Mr Owusu says the train-ing, which includes practi-cal skills such as pruning,has boosted his farm’s out-put from about 4.5 tonnes tomore than 9 tonnes.

The initiative is part ofSingapore-based Olam’scocoa projects in Ghana,which involves more than15,000 farmers. In Nigeriaand the Ivory Coast, Olamruns sustainability pro-grammes, helping 50,000growers with the support of

its customers, chocolatiersBlommer and Nestlé andCostco, the retailer.

“There is a lot of work tobe done by traders such asus and chocolate manufac-turers,” says GurinderGoindi, head of cocoa atOlam Ghana.

Many other companiesalso offer help to farmers.This ranges from funding –as growers often lack accessto capital – to providing fer-

tiliser and training, as welleducation for children.

Numerous initiativesinvolve trading companiessuch as Armajaro, now partof Ecom Agroindustrial,Cargill and ADM; chocolatemakers such as Mondelezand Mars; as well as donorsthat include Germany’s GIZand the Bill & MelindaGates Foundation.

In fact, so many pro-grammes have beenlaunched that a survey in2012 by the InternationalCocoa Organisation (ICCO),the intergovernmentalgroup overseeing the sector,counted 64 initiatives world-wide on cocoa sustainabil-ity, involving 60 agencies orcompanies.

It noted the “proliferationof mostly uncoordinated, attimes competing initiativesin cocoa-producing coun-tries”, adding that the out-comes of these programmeswere “disjointed, oftenwithout any involvementwith existing structures inthe countries”.

Laurent Pipitone at theICCO says the organisationis pushing for more harmo-nisation of the stakehold-ers, including the certifica-tion agencies such as RA,UTZ, and Fairtrade.

Bill Guyton, president ofthe World Cocoa Founda-tion, the umbrella develop-ment and sustainabilitybody with 110 companiesinvolved in the cocoa andchocolate sectors, believesthat the existence of allthese projects is not neces-sarily a bad thing. The WCFparticipates globally invarious social, productivity,and research initiatives,which in Africa reach400,000 farmers.

“I think the innovationcomes through differentprojects where new ideasare tested,” he says, addingthat when one group findssomething that works, oth-ers can come together andhelp widen the project on alarger scale.

He also stresses theimportance of involvinglocal government agenciesand institutions.

“Private companies can’tdo it alone,” says Mr Guy-ton.

Developing a sweet toothwww.ft.com/african­farming

Initiatives abound to increaseyields and safeguard suppliesCocoa

There is talk of a 1mtonne shortagein 2020, reportsEmiko Terazono

‘The innovationcomes throughdifferent projectswhere new ideasare tested’

Mounting pressure: productivity must improve Reuters

Standing in his cassava fieldunder the blazing sun inMampong, central Ghana,Elvis Opoku says he owesmuch to the humble root.

Having started cultivating a fiveacre pilot cassava field, the 27-year-oldfarmer has moved on to grow 20 acresof the starchy root, which has allowedhim to expand his poultry farm andbuy a store for his wife.

“I’m going on radio talk shows tell-ing people about cassava farming,”says Mr Opoku, who was chosen asGhana’s national cassava farmer ofthe year in 2012. “My friends are alsoshowing a lot of interest and somehave switched from growing maize tocassava,” he adds.

Mr Opoku is part of the growingbuzz surrounding cassava in Africa.Although the virtually drought-proofroot vegetable feeds about 300m onthe continent and accounts for40 per cent of the daily calorie intakein seven countries, including Nigeria,Ghana, Angola, and the CentralAfrican Republic, it has beenneglected by governments and west-ern donors.

However, governments have begunto realise the huge potential for theplant as a driver of rural develop-ment.

The market for cassava’s commer-cial and industrial use has started togrow. Its root starch is now indemand from food and beverage com-panies for bread and beer production.It can also be used in plywood andpharmaceuticals, as well as feedstockfor the production of ethanol biofuel.

African and western governmentsare spending millions of dollars tryingto improve production and create afood supply chain around cassava.

For example, Mr Opoku was part ofa UN International Fund for Agricul-tural Development’s $27.6m projectbacked by Ghana’s ministry of foodand agriculture. In west and centralAfrica, IFAD is backing five multiyearprojects with total financing of $106m,which directly benefit 1.6m house-holds.

Other donors providing funding forAfrican cassava cultivation andresearch projects include the Bill &Melinda Gates Foundation, the USAgency for International Developmentand the EU. All are funding research

and the training of farmers across thecontinent.

In Ghana, where cassava has beeneaten as gari – fermented and groundinto granules similar to fine couscous– or pounded into a mashed potato-like consistency as fufu – eaten withsoups or sauces – it is slowly sheddingits image as a “poor man’s crop”.

Thanks to demand from interna-tional brewers such as SABMiller andDiageo, which have started to produce

cassava beer locally, as well as a pushamong donors towards more efficientfood processing, the price for cassavahas risen sharply in Ghana, making itan attractive proposition for growers.

The cassava price – commonlytraded in Ghana in units of “Kia”, thefull 5.4 tonne load of the Korean truck– has risen sharply over the past fewyears, says Akwasi Adjekum, theco-ordinator for the government’sroot and tuber improvement and

marketing project funded by IFAD. AKia of cassava, which was almostworthless during the years of glut in2005-06, rose to Ghs760-800 in June lastyear, and is currently about Ghs1,100.“It’s becoming a growers’ market,”says Mr Adjekum.

Apart from increasing food securityand helping rural incomes, one factordriving increased demand for cassavais the current high import price forcereals. Cassava can be processed into

a high-quality flour that can partiallysubstitute for wheat flour.

In Nigeria, the world’s largest pro-ducer of cassava, Akinwumi Adesina,the country’s agriculture minister,has been pushing for food self-suffi-ciency.

The government has been trying toimprove processing capabilities andhas set an initial target of substitut-ing imported wheat flour with 10 percent cassava flour.

Some commercial bakers are strug-gling to meet the target and have castdoubts on the long-term aim of 40 percent substitution, but it has created amarket for cassava growers.

While the starchy root is a hardy,abundant crop that can be grownalmost everywhere in sub-SaharanAfrica and can be left in the groundfor up to 18 months until it is neededfor harvesting, cassava farming hassome challenges.

Fundamentally a small holder crop,the planting has to be done manuallyand does not lend itself to large-scalemechanised farming. While yields canbe vastly improved by good agricul-tural practices, large growers wouldneed many labourers to cover bigareas, whereas smaller family-ownedfarms can have members of the familydo the planting.

Cassava also has a high water con-tent and starts to degrade rapidlyafter harvesting. It has to be proc-essed within 48 hours of being lifted.With many African countries riddledwith logistical issues including badroads, centralised processing is not aviable option.

The Dutch Agricultural Develop-ment & Trading Company, or Dadtcooffers a solution. It dispatches amobile unit with the processing equip-ment to villages, so farmers only haveto harvest the cassava crop when itarrives.

Dadtco works with SABMiller inMozambique, helping the brewer pro-cure raw cassava from farmers. Thecompany, which started operations in2004, is also active in Nigeria andGhana.

Peter Bolt, Dadtco’s chief executive,says: “Our target is to roll out in 26 or27 sub-Saharan countries over thenext few years.”

He adds: “We strongly believe in abig future for cassava in Africa.”

Humble tuber finds itself the centre of attentionCassava No longer just a subsistence crop, commercial opportunities are growing for this drought-resistant root, writesEmiko Terazono

‘[The cassava business] isbecoming a growers’market’

Cultivating roots: women working in a grinding mill in the Oru­Ijebu community, southwest Nigeria. The country is the largest producer of cassava in the world Reuters

African Farming

4 ★ FINANCIAL TIMES WEDNESDAY JANUARY 22 2014