How To Start A Cassava Farming In Ghana

With the increasingly diverse use of cassava products in Ghana, cassava farming is getting more lucrative with every passing day. This farm product has always been a source of lively hood and food for millions of Ghanaians.
90% of Ghanaian households consume cassava products everyday. Some of the meals are: garri, wheat-flour, animal feed, commercial caramel, and a lot more.
As the population of Ghana, and Africa as a whole continues to grow, the demand for cassava products will continue to skyrocket, leading to higher revenues generated by cassava farmers. This widespread consumption of cassava products will continue to place it as a cash crop that always gets bought after a harvest, and guarantees a good profit after sales.
Why then haven’t a lot of people ventured into cassava farming? The popular answer is Ignorance and lack of capital. Capital hinders a lot of business activities from taking off.
If you’re looking for an agricultural business that would ensure you always almost sell out all your harvests, cassava farming is one great farming business to start.
Here’s a business plan and guide on how to start a cassava farm and processing business in Ghana:
1). Select A Good Site For Your
Cassava Farm:
When getting a site to setup a cassava farm, pick an area with deep well drained loamy soil, adequate rainfall, and warm & moist climatic conditions. Cassava grows best in these areas. An easy way to identify lands with these conditions is to see if:

• There’s a thick vegetation around it.
• The soil texture is good.
• The land is flat or gently sloping.

Picking the right location to setup your cassava farm is extremely important. Make sure the locals and food scientists can verify the richness of the soil before you proceed to make a purchase.
2). Improve The Soil For Planting The Cassavas
This step is not important if you already selected a good site to grow your cassava crops. But if you didn’t, you’d need to spend a lot of money to improve the soil. Some practices commonly used to improve the soil for cultivation are:

• Manure your soil.
• Prepare good seedbeds.
• Planting the cassava along with other crops, and more.

Your soil must be very fertile for cultivation else, you’d lose millions. Little mistakes as this should be totally avoided. But the best route still, is to choose a good site. This way, you don’t have to go through the pain of improving the soil for planting the cassava stem cuttings.
3). Select The Best Cassava Variety To Plant:
There are wide breeds of cassavas that you can
grow. But the best breeds to cultivate are the types
that’s widely accepted by your target market, gives
great yields, grows fast, and are resistant to pests
and diseases. The major factors involved in
selecting the right cassava breed to grow are:

• Varieties with good food quality
• Varieties with good cooking abilities
• Varieties that bulk early
• Varieties with good ground storability
• Varieties that are tolerant to pests, diseases, and weed.

Selecting the right breed to go with, will determine how successful your cassava farm will be. If you grow what people are not interested in, you’d go out of business faster than you imagined. Find out what the available buyers in the locality are interested in, then grow those types of cassava crops.
4). Select Healthy Cassava Stem
Cuttings:
Cassava stem cuttings are used to grow cassava
crops. Selecting healthy stems is crucial to growing
rich cassava crops that your market would quickly
purchase. You can buy cassava stem cuttings in
town markets and villages. After your initial
purchase of the cassava stem cuttings, the best
place to keep getting healthy cassava stem cuttings
are on your own farm. Planting healthy stem
cuttings is important because they’d help you to
greatly reduce the spread of cassava pests and
diseases. When getting cassava stem cuttings, this
is the best guide to follow:

• Find healthy cassava plants.
• Stay away from cassava plants that have or have had a history of pest and diseases.

5). Plant The Cassava Right:
Before you plant your cassava crop products, you
need to consider the land tillage method, the time of
the year, the seed bed type, and the method of
preparation, handling, and planting of the cassava
stem cuttings. Planting the cassava within all the
right conditions will ensure you reap a healthy
harvest. It will increase chances of good yields, and
would ensure you always have the cassava
harvests just when a lot of buyers need it.
6). Setup & Production Cost:
Just as any other startup business, a great
execution of your cassava farming business can
make you a millionaire. You need to understand the
perfect costing needs to ensure you’re not going to
generate a negative cash flow.
Many other costs that’d run deep through the
cassava farm are: carriage bags, insecticides, farm
maintenance, harvesting labour fees, general
employee salaries, and a couple others.
7). Marketing Your Cassava
Products:
After growing and harvesting your crops, you’d need
to ensure maximum returns by selling your harvests
to the right buyer and at the right price. Marketing is very important in every business.
Requirements For Starting A Cassava Farming In Ghana.

1. Capital
2. Plot Of Land
3. Marketing Strategies
4. Healthy Cassava Stems etc.

Cassava farming remains a lucrative and profitable agricultural venture if executed right.