Former President Olusegun Obasanjo has established new cassava breeding technology (Green House Technology) at the Olusegun Obasanjo Farms, Owiwi in Ewekoro local government area of Ogun State.
The Special Assistant on Media to former Nigerian President, Kehinde Akinyemi said the new technology can produce about 3m plantlets of cassava annually.
“This is a technology that can grow cassava and get maximum level. This particular specie can give you 30 tonnes per hectare and that is what we are on with the consultant”
“At full capacity, the greenhouse has the potential to hold about one million plantlets, which is planting materials for 50ha, and this volume can be repeated two to three times a year. So, this can produce about 3 million plantlets annually”
It places Nigeria, second behind the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), in Africa to have such new farm technology.
Mr Obasanjo said he first noticed the Semi Autotrophic Hydrophonic Facility for Cassava Stem Multiplication technology during a visit to Central African Republic (CAR) last year and decided to introduce it to the Nigerian agricultural sector
Using the technology, he said the farm can produce about three million plantlets of cassava annually.
The project, under the Technology for African Agric Transformation project, is in partnership with the International Institute for Tropical Agriculture (IITA), Ibadan.
