Shs5.7bn Cassava processing factory in Arua nears completion

By Andrew Cohen Amvesi

ARUA. The construction of a high-value cassava processing factory in Arua district is nearing completion, officials have said.

The factory valued at US Dollars 1.5 million (about Shs5.7 billion) is being constructed by Inter Link Inc at Enjeva, along Arua-Pakwach road in Ajia sub-county.

Inter Link Inc is a private corporation formed in 2010 to foster the development of an industrial economy that will create and sustain businesses throughout East Africa.

In Uganda, the company decided to establish a cassava processing factory in West Nile due to the high production rate of the crop in the sub-region, which ends up being consumed without adding value to it.

Speaking during a visit by officials from NARO Abi Zonal Agricultural Research and Development Institute (Abi ZARDI) to the factory on Friday, Emmanuel Malish, the Managing Director of Inter Link Inc revealed that the works on the factory have now reached 95 percent, adding that they are expecting to officially launch the facility in a month’s time.

“We invested like US Dollars 1.5 million in this facility and that is why you see it standing. Currently, we are at 95 percent and our plan for launching may be in a month from now because already, we have 3 acres of cassava which is ready for testing the factory,” Malish said.

Upon completion, Malish observed that the factory will have a production capacity of 4 tons of cassava per hour.

“The input is going to be 4 tons per hour, so if we are working for 8 hours during the day and another 8 hours during the night, we shall be looking at producing 64 tons per day. That will be our production capacity but we shall keep on increasing the number of hours depending on the availability of the raw material,” Malish explained.

Malish said they were moved to establish the factory in the West Nile sub-region because of the need to add value to the cassava being produced and consumed locally.

“Our main aim of putting this facility here is to improve the way people locally process cassava here. We intend to produce high quality cassava flour which is liked by everybody for people to consume locally. Our purpose is not for export but for local consumption here. Maybe in future if the local consumption is overwhelmed because of the production, that is when we shall start exporting our product to other countries,” he said.

Malish, however, stated that his team is yet to sit down with cassava farmer groups in the region and NARO Abi ZARDI officials to agree on a harmonized price for buying the raw material from the farmers.

During the visit, Dr. Emmanuel Odama, the Acting Director for NARO Abi ZARDI said the establishment of the factory in the region is so timely in the sense that farmers have been growing cassava but the return on their investment has been so low, purely because of lack of value addition.

“So, this kind of investment is one of the clear pathways that is going to contribute to getting West Nilers out of the 39 percent of those Ugandans who are not contributing to the money economy because the opportunity is vast and given the potential of the factory to consume 4 tons of fresh cassava per hour. That translates into big tons of cassava that needs to be produced in this region,” Odama said.

Odama added that: “All this is to call upon farmers who should be able to take up this opportunity very seriously to be able to up their game by way of increasing production and productivity. Productivity in the sense that we can have large fields but if what is coming from each field per unit is low, that is still a problem, and that is why NARO now comes in to provide those kinds of varieties which we have tested; which varieties are high yielding, which varieties are tolerant to diseases, which varieties are also tolerant to some of the different environmental stresses.”

Odama emphasized that cassava being the key commodity of interest, Abi ZARDI’s contribution will be to provide knowledge to farmers on how to grow cassava by way of economics and field management so that the yield is boosted and the production is good.

On behalf of the farmers in West Nile, Christine Ayikoru, the chairperson of Cassava and Allied Crops Cooperative Society promised not to let the factory management down when it comes to feeding the facility with cassava as the raw material needed for the factory to continue running.

“I want to thank Inter Link Inc for bringing this factory to West Nile. As farmers, we are promising that we shall not let them down. We are already moving to various districts in West Nile to encourage and give cassava farmers the knowledge on how they can do the production so that by the time the factory begins to operate, there will be a constant supply of the material, especially the cassava,” Ayikoru promised.

The visit was later concluded with a guided tour of the factory, which is expected to transform the lives of farmers in the West Nile sub-region.