Abuja — In its bid to boost cassava production in Nigeria, the Netherlands has approved six million euro as grant, to boost Nigeria's cassava production.

The country's Ambassador, Mr Arie van der Wie, made this known in Abuja recently, at the handing over of the project documents to Dr. Amit Roy, the President of International Centre for Soil Fertility and Agricultural Development (IFDC), the project executor.

However, the Dutch Agricultural Development and Trading Company (DATCO), the Netherlands-based agricultural company, initiated the project.

DATCO's primary goal is to initiate a rural development revolution by creating guaranteed markets for crops grown by farmers in the West African region.

The envoy said the three-year programme, tagged "Project 2015 Cassava Objectives," would be executed in three states; Taraba, Benue and Osun, which will be replicated in Ghana.

According to him, the project is aimed at strengthening the capacities of 162,000 farm families, supporting smallholder cassava farmers through adequate provision of modern technology and making it sustainable.

He identified the expected outcomes as; increased yearly net income by at least $250 per hectare of cassava and increased access to, and use of improved agro inputs from 10 to 80 per cent, among others, and would create a stable demand for cassava and be self supporting in energy requirements.

Mr Peter Bolt, the Representative of DADTCO, said the initiative became imperative to make cassava production environmentally and economically viable.

He said the market demand led DADTCO, in cooperation with a leading cassava equipment supplier, to develop a large-scale processing technology in association with processing industries in Taraba, Osun and Benue States.

The IFDC president noted that Nigeria is the world's largest cassava producer, with 38 million tonnes output of cassava annually.