OYO APPOINTS CAVA II COUNTRY MANAGER AS CHAIRMAN GOVENING COUNCIL

The Country Manager for the Cassava Adding Value for Africa Phase II Project, Professor Lateef Sanni has been appointed by the Oyo State Government as the Chairman Governing Council of the Oyo State College of Agriculture and Technology, Igboora.

This was announced on Tuesday 9^th January 2018 by the State government in a statement issued by the Commissioner for Information, Culture and Tourism, Mr. Toye Arulogun quoting the Secretary to the State Government, Mr. Olalekan Alli, saying, Professor Lateef Sanni would chair the Governing council of the Oyo State College of Agriculture and Technology, Igboora, while members of the council would include Mrs. Yemisi Iranloye, S.R.T. Oketobo, Hon, Rufai Oladejo, Mrs. Mercy Aboyade, Barr. Joshua Oluwole Olukunle, Alayande Rahman Abdulahi and Engr. Temitope Samson.

Prof. Lateef Sanni is currently the Deputy Vice-Chancellor Development at the Federal University of Agriculture, Abeokuta and former Dean, College of Food Science and Human Ecology, of the same University. The chairman and members of the governing council would be sworn by the Oyo state Governor, Abiola Ajimobi in due course.

Professor Lateef Sanni

The CAVA II Project Director, Prof. Kolawole Adebayo and the entire CAVA team congratulates Prof. Lateef Sanni, on this new appointment. According to Prof. Adebayo: “We rejoice with Prof. Sanni on this appointment and we have no doubt that in his capacity to mould the strategic direction for the growth of the agricultural institution.

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 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.