Youth
THE National Root Crops Research Institute has urged youths to deviate from cassava farming and concentrate on processing and other specialisations to reduce unemployment rate.
Prof. Ukpabi-Joseph Ukpabi, the Chief Executive Officer and Executive Director of the institute gave the advice in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) on Friday in Abuja.
He emphasised that instead of going to the field for cassava cultivation they could concentrate on purchasing grating machines to assist the women in semi urban areas to process their cassava.
The registrar further noted that some could even concentrate on packaging gari into smaller bags, well branded like three kilograms outside the usual 50 kilograms.
“The youth must not go into field production of cassava, let them concentrate in the one they can handle in semi-urban areas or urban areas like some youth can buy grating machines to assist women in grating their cassava after harvesting.
“There are Nigerians all over the world who want cassava in beautifully package form and while packaging it must be done in good, nice materials that will not tear easily and be presentable.
“If there is nutritional content in whatever you are packaging, you have to indicate that, visit laboratory and tell the consumers the high level of the cassava.
“You can decide to enrich your cassava even prepare cassava flour and soya bean to make it to be rich in protein.
“So your work will be getting soya beans flour enriching your cassava flour packaging, labelling and export to other countries.
“Through this effort, about two million youths will be involved in cassava processing and further reduce unemployment,” he added. (NAN)
– Aug. 2, 2019 @ 13:55 GMT |
Tags: Root crops institute encourages youths on cassava processing
