Northwest: Prominent elite offers 10,000 cassava stems to boost farmers’ output

Several farmers in Ndu, a town in Donga Mantung Division of the Northwest, have received improved cassava stems freely donated by Dr Nick Ngwanyam, one of the area’s prominent elites.

The Ndu Municipal Council said it received 10,000 improved cassava stems worth 500,000 francs from Dr Ngwanyam, and they were distributed to farmers on Thursday, April 6.

“Ndu Subdivision is lucky to have Dr Nick Ngwanyam as their elite. He is providing almost 10,000 cassava stems worth 500,000 frs to farmers of Ndu Council area and Donga Mantung in general,” Ndu Mayor, Abdu Kafon, is quoted to have said.

In a post on its social media handles, the Ndu Council noted that Dr Ngwanyam has made similar gestures in the past.

He offered farmers yam sets, wheat seeds, sunflower seeds, pantalon fowls last year, the Council said, adding that “he is an elite with a difference.”

The improved cassava stems could help improve cassava production in Ndu, one of the few areas in Cameroon where wheat is grown.

Amid the war in Ukraine and the wheat scarcity that stroke the world, Cameroon’s Institute for Agricultural Research, last year, advised farmers to plant more tubers like cassava, from which flour can be derived to substitute imported wheat flour.

By Tata Mbunwe