Jethro Yerga, Jalingo
Tita Kuru, a food Processing Company, subsidiary of General TY Danjuma (rtd) holdings, with head office in Jalingo, has called on farmers in Taraba State to partner with the company so as to take advantages of several opportunities to enable them boost cassava production in Taraba State and improve their well being.
The acting Managing Director of the company, Mr Emmanuel Zebedi, made this call while interacting with journalists in his office in Jalingo, the Taraba State Capital.
Mr Zebedi stated that partnership with Tita Kuru Food Processing Company offer farmers alot of advantages to enable them deal with the usual threats associated with cassava farming, especially off farming processes such as harvesting, peeling, drying and marketing among others.
The manager disclosed that Tita Kuru company has modern high quality automated machines with enough capacity to accept fresh cassava tubers and peel, wash, grind and turn the grinded tubers to flour within eight hours.
“We have modern automated machines. In fact, we have a minimum plant capacity of 50 metric tones per sheep and an estimated amount of 15 thousand metric tones annually of cassava tubers. A plant alone has the capacity to uptake a minimum of 15 thousand metric tones at a sheep. So there is a gap for farmers in the state to see business prospect to invest in cassava farming since we are here.
“In Tita Kuru, we do accept freshly uprooted cassava tubers. So the concerns of farmers regarding how to peal, how to wash, sundry and package are addressed. Theirs is just to farm. Even if they produce hundred tones available for us in one day, we will pick it and I assure you, we will pay them.
“Though we do our best to avoid ‘political farmers’, we go a length to support serious farmers who go through our screening and scale through.
“So farmers should feel free to visit our company to understand our quality demands and mode of operation and to also see how best we can support them to farm cassava. Tita Kuru Company processes cassava both during raining and dry season. We take farmers through agronomic practices and guide them towards easy ways of marketing their products,” the acting MD stressed.
The acting Managing Director expressed dismay that the company had done need assessment in the state only to discover that people farm cassava but the yield per hectare has always being far below half an average not to even to talk of half an average of the expected yield per hectare.
He disclosed that over the years, Tita Kuru Food Processing Company has being supplying improved cassava stems such as Obasanjo variety, game changer variety and Ayaya variety which last for only 9 months to serious farmers at subsidised rate to boost their yield.
While expressing the readiness of the company to support farmers in diverse ways to attain their goals, Mr Zebedi noted that the company guarantees qualletera, high quality and improved cassava stem and does not cheat farmers who bring their produce to sale in the company especially that they weigh their cassava before paying for it.
