agrl_innovations_in_ssa.pdf?utm_content=buffercb41d&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter

human foods, future expansion will require further ventures into convenience foods, livestock
feeds and industrial products.
This will require ongoing support for: building the capacity of local fabricators, improving access
to capital for vulnerable groups, improving access to inputs, reducing high production costs
(particularly of labour due to limited mechanisation), ensuring the sustained profitability of
processing centres, and infrastructure improvement. Unfortunately the production capacity of
cassava farmers has not always been sufficient to meet the demand from cassava processors,
who consequently face seasonal supply constraints and operate below capacity.
Lessons learned. The public sector played two important roles, firstly by investing in cassava
breeding and pest control programmes and secondly by introducing policy changes to reduce
subsidies favouring cereals. These in combination triggered rapid booms in cassava production.
The private sector played a major supporting role not only by providing project finance but also
by ensuring that early prototype processing technologies have been developed into often smaller,
simpler and commercially viable models. An important lesson is that a market-led, private sectordriven
developmental approach was the driving force of development in the industry. This was
achieved through supporting processors and by linking smallholder farmers to the market. While
this has led to emergence of large-scale processors in Nigeria, a number of challenges remain to
be addressed. For any agricultural innovation to thrive and be sustainable all components of the
system must be incorporated: technological, market, institutional and infrastructural.
Nigeria, rice production in Katsina state
This case study concerns an initiative
supported by FARA’s SSA CP PLS in KKM in the
Dandume Local Government Area (LGA) of
Katsina State, Nigeria. Rice is an increasingly
important crop in Nigeria, grown for both sale
and for home consumption. Dandume with its
large lowland (fadama) areas has traditionally
been a rice-growing area. However low
productivity and poor marketing, as in other
rice-growing areas have limited the potential benefits. Bringing together stakeholders
within an IP at LGA level provided the forum for joint identification of challenges and
opportunities that could be addressed by partners. Introduction and testing of new
rice varieties, management, and storage practices combined with improved marketing
led to higher productivity and household incomes. Initial success on the pilot scheme
based on five villages is already being scaled out to all villages in the LGA. The success
demonstrates the importance of local stakeholders being able to work together in
solving simultaneously production, storage and marketing problems while linking and
building the capacity of production and market actors.
Context. Rice is an important crop in Nigeria produced for both home consumption and sale
and often considered a luxury food item for special occasions (Booz, 2009). There are many
The case studies: West Africa
79