The Nigeria Cassava Investment Accelerator (NCIA), on August 20, hosted a cassava operator roundtable to address why Nigeria’s position as the world’s largest cassava producer has not translated to comparable industrial value creation. 

The event, held at the Lagos Oriental Hotel, brought together processors, offtakers, and regulatory bodies to advance Nigeria’s domestic cassava market from stated interest to committed, sustained transactions through a structured, fact-finding dialogue. 

Using Thailand and Vietnam as reference points, the discussion highlighted the significant gap between Nigeria’s production volume and industrial value. Participants explored the underlying causes of this gap, including product quality and consistency, availability of testing infrastructure, research and development funding, market coordination, and policy gaps. 

The roundtable was attended by more than 25 stakeholders representing 17 organisations, with Flour Mills of Nigeria, Harvest Feed and Agro Processing, IDH, and Standards Organization of Nigeria represented on the panel. The session generated practical insights to strengthen linkages across the value chain and support a more competitive and investment-ready cassava processing ecosystem. 

NCIA continues to work with stakeholders to better understand and bridge the gaps limiting the development of a sustainable and commercially viable cassava processing ecosystem.

A communiqué summarising the key discussions, insights and agreed next steps from the roundtable will be shared with participants by 11th September.