Ndoma Agbor, executive director of the Centre for Sustainable Agricultural Development (CSAD) said cassava as a commodity has huge investment potentials in the South South, South West, South East and North Central zones of Nigeria.

Agbor added that Nigeria should take advantage of rising oil prices to develop its agriculture sector, especially cassava production.

The Collaborative Study of Cassava in Africa (COSCA) found that 70% of Nigeria's rural population eat a minimum of one cassava meal a day.

According to the study, cassava performs five duties as an income product. These duties are:

as a famine reserve crop

as rural staple food

as a cash crop for urban consumption

as a industrial raw material

as a foreign exchange earner

Nigeria is currently the world's largest cassava producer and the crop is starting to have an increasing presence in world trade.

Some of the various programmes aimed at stimulating cassava production are:

the Presidential Initiative on Cassava

the Cassava Mosaic Disease Prevention Programme

the Cassava Enterprises Development Programme

the Cassava Multiplication Programme

the Root and Tuber Expansion Programme