Cassava: Community Entrepreneur Establishes Processing Plant to Boost Local Production

In a bid to reduce the cumbersome method of cassava processing as normally practiced in the area and boost productivity, an entrepreneur at Emede in Isoko South Local Government Area of Delta state has innovatively established an enterprise of cassava processing machines.

According to Mr. Oghenewede Okoro, the owner of the cassava processing enterprise, the machines were assembled since June 2014 to ameliorate the difficulties women go through from grating to fermentation of cassava. Mr. Okoro listed the machines to include a small Lister engine, a wooden box with a grater for grinding cassava, rubber – rollers that are connected to the Lister engine and devices constructed for draining out acidic water from the grated cassava and ready for frying.

The harvesting and processing of cassava into starch or garri in the community is an every day business except market days and Sundays. He further explained that, women from Etevie quarter and  environs in Emede patronize him as they carry harvested cassava to Ekerie street where the machines are installed.

 

He explained that after the first stage of processing the cassava with the grater,  the women extract starch into separate containers and add red oil to the remaining cassava paste which is further packed into bags with identical materials like pieces of clothes or ropes by each farmer and are loaded into the press to continue the fermentation process.

Mr. Okoro who described the process of fermentation as a “night duty”, said it takes about two hours and half for each bag of grated cassava to dry and is immediately replaced with other bags. The grated cassava bags are then arranged on the machine and a jack is manually adjusted to compress the bags such that the acidic water is removed through a channel to a soak-away pit.

 

Speaking with AgroNigeria, he explained that the average cost for the initial processing of one bag of grated cassava is One hundred Naira (N100), while farmers come for collection the next morning for the final processing into Garri.

Describing the enterprise as being lucrative, Mr. Okoro stated that besides the operational cost of diesel and petrol, he incurs no other costs in the process except for periodic maintenance of the machines.

One of his customers – Mrs. Okoh Elizabeth, also speaking, commended the efforts of Mr. Okoro, as women in the area no longer have to travel a long distance in order to process their cassava. She also noted that labour has reduced as well as cost of grating and fermentation since the installation of the cassava processing machines in the community.