Students convert cassava peels to feed in FCT

Students of Junior Secondary School, Jikwoyi in the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), operating under Students for the Advancement of Global Entrepreneurship (SAGE) have converted cassava peel waste into high quality poultry feed.

The SAGE group in the school produces high quality ‘Gist Feeds’ which sell for as low as N2,800 for a 25kg bag of starter feed as against other brands of starter feeds which sells for N4,000.

They said there is high demand for their feeds as it attracts both small and big poultry farmers including the school’s poultry farm.

The students also engaged 16 women in Kilankwa community near Jikwoyi recently to process High Quality Cassava Peels (HQCP), a major ingredient in cassava based feed production through their outsourcing arrangement.

SAGE’s Chief Operating Officer (COO) of the school, Deborah Ephraim said, “We are happy we are touching the lives of rural women by empowering them to produce processed HQCP for our feed milling. Their livelihoods and income have increased since we started our project in Kilankwa community.”

President of the SAGE group, Gifa Nartey, said, “We are young but aware that empowering our rural women is a way forward out of the vicious cycle of poverty in rural Nigeria.”

The Principal, Princess A. A. Adesiyakan said the project was in line with the vision of the FCT Universal Basic Education Board (UBEB) and that it will empower the predominantly female team.

Mrs. Liyatu Ibrahim, leader of the Women Co-operative Society in Kilankwa Community commended the students for the initiative saying, they now know the usefulness of cassava peels.