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 per cent 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 per cent without compromising quality.”
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.
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 .
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