CAVA II Country Manager emerges as Funaab Deputy Vice Chancellor Development (DVC-D)

Professor Lateef Sanni, the new elected Deputy Vice Chancellor Development

The Cassava Adding Value for Africa Phase II Project Country Manager for Nigeria, Prof. Lateef Sanni Oladimeji, has emerged as Deputy Vice Chancellor Development of the Federal University of Agriculture Abeokuta . This was announced during the Special Senate meeting held at the Senate Chamber of the University on Tuesday 7^th November 2017.

Prof. Lateef Sanni before his appointment was the Dean, College of Food Science and Human Ecology, Federal University of Agriculture, Abeokuta. In a keenly contested election with Professor A.A.A Agboola of Mathematics Department, he emerged as the winner with 105 vote as against the latter with 15 votes. Prof. Sanni also happens to be the first Alumnus to become a Deputy Vice Chancellor Development of the University.

Prof. Lateef Oladimeji SANNI graduated from the University of Agriculture, Abeokuta with Bachelor of Science degree; Second Class Upper Division in the Department of Food Science and Technology in 1990. He obtained Master and Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) Degrees at the Department of Food Technology, University of Ibadan in February, 1993 and April, 1999 respectively.  He joined the University of Agriculture, Abeokuta (UNAAB) in 1993 as Assistant Lecturer and became Professor of Food Science and Technology in 2008. Prof. Sanni became the First Alumnus to bag PhD, Professor, and now Deputy Vice Chancellor Development of the Federal University of Agriculture, Abeokuta.

He has published over 72 Technical Journal articles; over 25 Books, and over 26 Conference proceedings. Prof. Sanni has over 20 years' experience in research, consultancy and collaborations as a postharvest expert on tropical root crops mostly in West Africa coupled with missions to Latin America, Asia, Europe and other parts of Africa mostly implemented by the International Institute of Tropical Root Crop and Natural Resources Institute, UK, respectively.

He had received academic awards and research grants (either singly or as partner) from International donors such as World Bank, International Foundation for Science, Sweden, Department for International Development, European Union and Gates Foundation.

The CAVA II Project Director, Prof. Kolawole Adebayo and the entire CAVA team congratulates Prof. Lateef Sanni, the CAVA II Nigeria Country Manager on his new appointment as the Deputy Vice Chancellor Development for the University.

Cassava: Adding Value for Africa (CAVA II) is a project led by the Federal University of Agriculture Abeokuta, Nigeria, working closely with Natural Resources Institute of University of Greenwich, United Kingdom; Food Research Institute Ghana; Tanzania Food and Nutrition Center, Tanzania; Africa Innovations Institute, Uganda; Chancellor College, University of Malawi alongside several partners.

The project aims to increase the incomes of at least 200,000 value chain actors, especially smallholder farmers and processors in Nigeria, Ghana, Tanzania, Uganda and Malawi, by at least USD177 million in five years. This will be achieved through stimulating sales of more than two million tons of cassava into HQCF and other cassava product value chains.

The premise of the CAVA II project is that if new markets for cassava can be developed and smallholders linked to them at scale, then farmers will increase their incomes and adopt new productivity enhancing technologies. The project intends to work across the value-added cassava chain, specifically focusing on a number of bottlenecks that have slowed growth and progress from previous projects:

The project works directly with farmers to improve profitability of cassava sales, both through the pull of market demand and through increasing farmer yields with improved stems.