CLIMATE CHANGE: A REASON TO SUPPORT NIGERIA’S CASSAVA BREAD By Temitope Ogunrinde
When the law on cassava bread was reported to have been rejected by the lawmakers in Nigeria recently, there was an air of satisfaction among the critics of the government as they were quick to broadcast the news all over the social media accompanied with all forms of facetious remarks. Expectedly so, the idea of cassava bread has been received with bout of cynicism since the president launched a campaign to promote it earlier in 2012. The purported executive bill which was reported to have been titled “A bill for an act to provide for the mandatory inclusion of cassava in production of all flour and for other matters connected therewith” was seeking to boost cassava production in Nigeria through local processing, but failed to pass the second reading. Opposing legislators led by house member, Peter Edeh, argued that that the compulsory inclusion of cassava will be injurious or unhealthy for the “30 – 40%” diabetic populace of Nigeria. However, the Honorable Minister for Agriculture denied a few days after the reports that no such bill was sent to the National assembly by the executive, which leaves us wondering where the bill came from. But then, let’s assume that such bill was actually sent to the National assembly, does it deserve such opposition?
Lately, growing global interests have surrounded the cassava crop, so much so that 2012 has been dubbed the “unofficial year of cassava”. Most recently, the cassava fuss reached an even more interesting height when the crop started coming up in climate discussions as a crop which is capable of resisting the stresses of climate change. A study conducted by CIAT (International Center for Tropical Agriculture ) described cassava as “Rambo root”, having the ability to outperform its counterpart staples such as beans, potato, bananas etc. in sub Saharan Africa as temperatures rise in region due to climate change, and thus possess the potential for being one of the key crops that could help solve global food security problems in the face of a changing climate. Nigeria, being the top producer of the cassava in the world becomes very relevant in the light of such discovery as cassava may soon be a highly covetable agricultural produce among many countries.
The International Institute of Tropical Agriculture (IITA) recently sounded a warning to Nigeria to avoid exporting its cassava produce to other countries as this may result in it being refined and sold back into the at exorbitant prices. Moreover, exporting unprocessed cassava does not earn farmers the deserved value for its production, thus further impoverishing and discouraging the farmers. The country must therefore find ways to intensify the local processing of the large amount of cassava being produced by these farmers. This can be achieved by diversifying existing processing avenues which are currently insufficient.
Garri or cassava flour is one of the major food products of processed cassava in Nigeria. In Latin America it is known as Farihna and has been widely incorporated with wheat in the production of bread in countries such as Brazil where 2% of cassava flour is being incorporated in wheat flour bread. This is done majorly to reduce the rate of wheat flour importations. Accordingly, the idea to do the same in Nigeria is not new to the current administration, the Obasanjo administration made efforts to incorporate 10% cassava flour in wheat flour bread. However, that doesn’t seem to have taken off as many will testify that they have not picked up such kind of loaf on any bread stand in Nigeria. The move, therefore, by the current administration to intensify the promotion of the cassava bread to help diversify the processing of cassava locally and reduce the importation of wheat into the country shouldn’t be seen as inappropriate, yet this has been one of the major points of criticism.
The reported argument which led to the rejection of the so called cassava bread law by the legislators, that the cassava bread may be harmful to an ostensibly very large diabetic population of Nigerians consumers, seems to have been absorbed by the critics as long as it did the job of rubbishing the idea of cassava bread and ridiculing the federal government. Contrary to the claim of the legislators, Cassava flour has also been largely described as good flour for baking bread and other confectioneries and has been found to have a lower Glycemic index compared to wheat flour. A study titled: “Glycemic Indices of Selected Nigerian Flour Meal Products in Male Type 2 Diabetic Subjects” by Fasanmade et al. published in DiabetologicaCrostica, 2007, had shown that cassava flour has a Glycemic index of 59.34 only higher than those of Yam flour with 49.81 and Maize flour with 54.8 while the Glycemic index of Wheat flour is soaring at 70.10. Cassava flower is therefore suitable for fortifying wheat flower to reduce its glycemic index. Moreover, foods made from cassava flour such as fufu, amala and eba already constitute a large part of average Nigerian meals. It is therefore baffling that the legislators’ argument was not widely faulted. Their final submission that the federal Government should rather find a better way to export unprocessed cassava goes further to show their insensitiveness to economic and social consequences of such acts.
The major criticism that we all seem to accept though, is that there are more pressing issues to be addressed by the administration rather than a thankless and incessant consumption of cassava bread by the president on national television in an effort to promote it. However, we are the same people that have continued to advocate for a shift in attention from the oil which has been laden with all forms of financial scandals and environmental problems and concentrate more on our agriculture which has once been a major source of revenue generation for Nigeria and has the ability to usher us into a green economy.
Cassava is our heritage, an agricultural resource among many others that our country has been abundantly blessed with and is now receiving increased interest around the world. The prospect of climate change has further elevated its status from a once ignored crop to one with many opportunities. By allowing ill-informed legislators to throw out, baby with the bathwater, an effort to promote local processing of cassava and reducing it to a mare object of humor and mockery against government while other countries have begun taking the crop seriously, we risk losing the position as a major power in cassava production just as we lost oil palm to Malaysia. Many of us are yet to taste the cassava bread to know how unpalatable it is, but really, how bad can it be?
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