The Nigeria Cassava Growers’ Association (NCGA) came
into being as a result of the joint decision of Federal Government, the Research Institutions, International Institute of
Tropical Agriculture (IITA) International Fund for Agriculture Development (IFAD), National Seeds Service and National Root
Crops Research Institute. The Association was launched in 1987. NCGA is the umbrella Association for cassava farmers that
are engaged in cassava production, processing , marketing as well as curbing the effect of cassava diseases such as cassava
Mealbug (CM) and cassava Green Mite (CGM).
Membership spread across the 774 Local Government areas
and in all the senatorial districts of the 36 states and the Federal Capital Territory
of Nigeria . The association has a large
fellowship registered into cooperative societies from the wards to Local Governments to the states and National Level. The
cooperatives societies are registered in turn with the state Ministries of Trade & Industries and cooperatives.
Unarguably , Nigeria
Cassava Growers, Association is the largest cassava farmers association in the
world with over 5 million registered members and millions of farmers who are yet to register. Presently, Nigeria remains
the largest producer of cassava in the world .
The National headquarters of NCGA is situated at 10, Textile/ Iyin road
Ado Ekiti , Ekiti State and Chief Tola Adepomola is the current National President.
Prior to the formation of NCGA, countries like Brazil, Malaysia were ahead Nigeria, they were exporting 70 percent of their cassava products
into the world market. Presently, Nigeria
is exporting less than 10percent of her total production into the world market and remaining 90 percent is for human consumption
. Yet, Nigeria is leading the world as
far as cassava production is concerned.
To be precise, before inauguration of NCGA in 1987 Nigeria was the 5th largest producer of cassava after countries such as Brazil, Thailand , Malaysia
and Indonesia. Through the inauguration of NCGA and the involvement of IFAD and IITA, Nigeria has become the world largest
producer of cassava since 1991.
