Over 54,000 small
scale cassava farmers in East Africa has benefitted from value addition project
by a NGO.
Brought under 36
Cassava Village Processing Project (CVPP) in Kenya’s Busia and Makueni
districts, Arusha in Tanzania and Uganda’s Jinja and Buyende town, the farmers were
given over 16 million cassava cuttings of different varieties within a year.
The Farm Concern
International (FCI) which funded the project said it has increased income for
women and young people by increasing the potential of cassava as source of carbohydrate
for animal feed, human and starch for industrial food processing companies.
“During the
intervention a total of 10,642 metric tonnes of cassava was processed into
chips and chunks for both local and industrial markets, 23,400 metric tonnes
were sold to the fresh market, with 45,806 metric tonnes utilised for food security,”
FCI said.
The project which
partnered with private sector has helped farmers to commercialize farming to improve
food security and incomes through small scale industries by mobile motorized
and manual chippers for micro-processing which allows farmers to supply to key
starch, human and animal feed manufacturers across the region.
“Cassava
Villages have been transformed into commercial hubs where small scale farmers
collectively produce, process and market their produce accruing benefits as a
result of economies of scale and lower transactional costs,” the NGO said.
Farm Concern has
also facilitated market linkages between the commercial villages and key
cassava industrial players through village based business forums (VBFs).
Under the
project cassava farming has been transformed from subsistence crop into a reputable
commercialised commodity valued after streamlined marketing systems and
favourable market prices.
To cut off
brokers the project also created saving schemes in 43 villages whose collective
savings of Sh18.2 million has promoted lending for individual and group
investments.
The project has
created over Sh320million in a year of crop produced in the project which was
also carried out.
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