The Raw Materials Research and Development Council (RMRDC) has canvassed the use of cassava starch to fight environmental degradation.

The council’s Director General, Prof. Azikiwe Onwualu, made the call on Tuesday in Ibadan at a workshop on production of biodegradable green plastics and monosodium glutamate from cassava starch.

Onwualu, who said the technology for the production was already established in many developed countries, noted that proliferation of plastic disposables and bottled water containers had become a menace to the physical and soil environment in the country.

He called for a mass enlightenment campaign for a shift from the use of non-biodegradable plastic packaging materials to biodegradable materials.

Biodegradable materials, he said, were safer and more environmentally friendly, the director-general, who was represented by Mrs Angela Uboh, a top official of RMRDC, said.

To deploy cassava starch for industrial uses of biodegradable green plastics and monosodium glutamate, Onwualu called for the development of early varieties of cassava suitable for mechanical harvesting and peeling.

He also called for an efficient as well as integrated production and marketing strategy to ensure steady supply of the crop to local industries and foreign markets.

Dr Adeniyi Afolabi, a chemistry lecturer at the Federal University of Agriculture, Abeokuta, said the use of cassava starch in the production of biodegradable plastics in the country would stimulate more interest in cassava production.

This, he added, would reduce unemployment and create an eco-friendly biodegradable plastic capable of decaying harmlessly in the environment.

Afolabi said while Nigeria remained the world’s largest producer of cassava starch, less than 10 per cent of its produce was being channeled into industrial use.

The state’s Coordinator of RMRDC, Dr Gabriel Awolehin, said the challenge of meeting the raw material needs of increasing cassava products should not rest with cassava farmers alone.

“ Government has a role of appropriate policy decisions that encourage and protect the farmers and processors.

“ Agricultural development agencies need to have production target to support by provision of inputs, land and technical services,’’ he said.

He called on the country’s financial institutions to make loans freely available at single digit interest so that cassava farmers would be empowered to increase their production capacities.

The RMRDC workshop was organised in conjunction with the South-West Zone of National Environmental Standards and Regulations Enforcement Agency (NESREA) and the Oyo State Ministry of Environment and Habitat.

The objectives of the workshop included creation of awareness on the adverse effects of waste plastic, the diversification from common use of cassava and generation of foreign exchange from export of the crop.