Africa Guardian

Dar es Salaam, 08 April 2013. His Excellency Dr Ali Mohamed Shein, the
President of the Revolutionary Government of Zanzibar, has praised IITA for
its work with the isle’s Ministry of Agriculture and Natural Resources
(MANR) in boosting the production and productivity of root and tuber crops,
especially cassava and yam, and appealed for more support in cassava value
addition to increase the income of small-older farmers of the crops.
“In Zanzibar, we are good eaters of cassava since time immemorial. In the
morning, we boil fresh cassava for breakfast and cook it with coconut for
lunch. We also peel and put it out in the sun to dry for two to three days
into what we call ‘makopa’ which we also cook for dinner. However, we need
to help our farmers to diversify its uses beyond boiling and making makopa
by adding value. This way, we will also diversify their income,” he said.
The President was speaking to a delegation from the International Institute
of Tropical Agriculture (IITA) led by Director General Nteranya Sanginga
that made a courtesy call at the State House in Zanzibar recently.
Dr Sanginga also delivered an invitation to the President from Chief
Olusegun Obasanjo, former president of Nigeria and IITA’s goodwill
ambassador, to the inauguration of IITA’s science building in the eastern
African hub in Dar es Salaam, scheduled for 13 May.
Graciously accepting the invitation to the inauguration, President Shein
said his government valued research and was strengthening the Zanzibar
Agricultural Research Institute (ZARI) at Kizimbani to better serve its
people.
He congratulated IITA for investing in the science building to boost the
region’s research capacity and assured IITA that researchers from Zanzibar
would make use of the facility.
The DG pointed out to the President that IITA had many years of research
experience in value addition of crops and was keen on supporting the
government of Zanzibar in this effort.
He further said that Zanzibar had been selected as one of the target areas
of a project funded by the African Development Bank (AfDB) to promote the
production and processing of cassava among other crops that had just been
launched that same morning.
Sanginga pointed to Nigeria which, with the help of IITA, is now ranked as
the number one producer of cassava in the world with more than 16 products
from value addition.
“Recently in Nigeria, the government passed a policy that all bread must
include 20% cassava flour. This has translated into savings of billions of
US dollars in reduced wheat importation with the money going to small-holder
farmers and processors instead,” he said. “Our researchers have shown that
it is even possible to increase the cassava flour in the bread up to 40%
without compromising quality.”
The DG further said that IITA had a long history of building capacity of
researchers in sub-Saharan Africa and that the science building was being
put up to support these efforts. The state- of-the-art science building
would be open to researchers from eastern Africa and students to carry out
research on various problems facing small-holder farmers.
Also present at the meeting was Dr Abdulhamid Y. Mzee, the Chief Secretary,
Revolutionary Government of Zanzibar, Mr Affan O. Maalim, the Principal
Secretary, and Ms Mariam Juma, Director of Planning, MANR, Mr Haji Sale,
Director of ZARI, Dr Suleiman S. Muhamed, officer in charge of Pemba.
The DG was accompanied by Dr Manyong, the Director for eastern Africa based
in Dar es Salaam.
IITA worked with Zanzibari researchers and developed four improved cassava
varieties that were tolerant to the two diseases ravaging cassava in the
island, cassava brown streak disease and cassava mosaic disease and revived
the crop’s production – farmers had nearly abandoned growing cassava
altogether due to the two diseases.
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About IITA (www.iita.org)
Africa has complex problems that plague agriculture and people’s lives. We
develop agricultural solutions with our partners to tackle hunger and
poverty. Our award winning research for development (R4D) is based on
focused, authoritative thinking anchored on the development needs of
sub-Saharan Africa. We work with partners in Africa and beyond to reduce
producer and consumer risks, enhance crop quality and productivity, and
generate wealth from agriculture. IITA is an international non-profit R4D
organization since 1967, governed by a Board of Trustees, and supported
primarily by the CGIAR.
CGIAR is a global agriculture research partnership for a food secure future.
Its science is carried out by the 15 research centers who are members of the
CGIAR Consortium in collaboration with hundreds of partner organizations.
www.cgiar.org