It’s quite shameful that lots of people languish in the pit of unemployment, suffer at the hands of hunger & are enslaved by the least of economic depressions when there’re many gold mines & money boxes just below our feet, waiting to be discovered & exploited.

In west African region, the soil is highly optimized naturally with nutrients that support the growth & good yield of cassava but a lot of people are not venturing into the business. There’s also a big market for this crop in the local scene with cassava finding various use in a series of different recipes. The nutritional benefits of cassava are innumerable & it is a good source of foreign if you prefer to fully concentrate on it.

All these being said without an element of lie or deceit, why would anyone even neglect the prospect of becoming a cassava entrepreneur? Cassava entrepreneurs have been exploiting the fact that the product can be produced & marketed in diverse forms to make maximum profits & you can pitch your tent with them to start making your own truckload of cash today also.

Being marketable when processed into flour form, starch, ethanol, glucose syrup & flakes, cassava is extensively accepted for a number of use. Just lately, certain bakeries & restaurants sprung up & created a new market for cassava dealers with the advent of cassava bread. What more are you waiting for?

There is scarcely a family in Nigeria that can survive a full 6 months without consuming any cassava product such as garri, cassava bread, cassava flour meal or any other form of it. This creates an even bigger market – the household – & that is where many entrepreneur’s make their profits from.

Most people are unenthusiastic about a good business because they do not know how to go about it, have no knowledge of it in the first place or are too scared to try because of the uncertainty that might be involved.

This business is a risk that is worth taking. We would list some steps below to set you on the path to become a very successful cassava farmer while incurring nominal risks along the line.

1.            Site selection

There’s nothing you can do in agriculture without land, & to have a good yield of cassava (which translates to maximum profits), you should select the best & recommended soil for a cassava plantation is a well-drained loamy soil. Soil that is prone to water logging like clay soil is not good for your crops & would start to make your crops get various bacteria & fungal infections. A region with sufficient rainfall should also be looked at when considering site location. Cassava grows well when it’s planted in areas that have trees, shrubs & other vegetation growing around them as this means more nutrients for the land. You could get an agricultural scientist to look at any land that you’ve chosen first before you start anything to be on the safer side.

2.            Optimizing the land

After selecting the land, make sure that it is totally perfect for cassava . Cassava plants would fail where the soil is very acidic for that reason you should accurately lime the soil before starting. Different liming materials that you can use include slaked lime, soda lime calcium bicarbonate, etc. If you’re good with liming, you could do this yourself otherwise, get the service of a professional or you might end up with a highly alkaline soil that’d eliminate some basic nutrients. Prepare good beds for the cassava stems & you could practice a little of mixed cropping just to improve yield. Little mistakes costs a lot when it comes to cassava so you should completely avoid them.

3.            Choose Variety

Like several other crops, cassava comes in different varieties & cultivars. To get the best breed for cultivation, check around your local market & other target markets to see the type of cassava in high demand there. This would help you begin preparation for your income right from the first day. Not only does your market needs matter here, checking for those that are very anti certain diseases in the area or generally & those breeds that naturally give the best yield is equally essential. Of what use is supply if you’re not making desired income on it? If you begin to grow a kind of cassava that no one likes or does not really perform well, you might as well be ruining your own business with your own hands & you do not want that.

4.            Select healthy cuttings

After knowing what variety you want, set out to get their stem cuttings (which are the means of propagation). Be sure that those you get are very healthy & show no signs of disease or defects. It’d be wise to arm yourself with adequate information on how cassava stems should look when healthy or take an agricultural consultant with you. The thing with unhealthy stems is that in the long run, they might spread the infection to others through a means like the soil, air, or any other transfer agents. Keeping your farm safe starts from here & proper care should be taken.

5.            Planting & harvesting

 You have all you need for your farm now & what is left is planting. Till the land the correct way, make proper cassava beds & plant your stem in the soil. Provide good irrigation system (either manual or automatic) to make sure that your plants are not dehydrated & a sound drainage system would help curtail the effect of waterlogged soil. Weeding is carried out often to ensure maximum nutrients for your plants & reduce the occurrence of weed induced infections that might sometimes arise. The use of herbicides should be selective as we don’t want the soil getting too acidic for use. Idyllically, cassava plants mature for harvest after the first 11 to 13 months of planting.

6.            Post-Harvest Processing

You can ether decide to sell your cassava straight after you harvest from the farm or if you have the means, process into other forms first. Garri is hugely popular & involves frying the cut, pressed & grinded cassava. You could also make it into flour for making meals & bread, starch et cetera.

Many people go into the export of cassava & its products as a side business & you could as well engage in this but cultivating an adequate amount of might be enough profit for you. Either way, you win.