Cassava Food Starch from Ghana to the World

Sowing the Seeds of Prosperity

Frontier AgriVentures is the founder of the largest integrated cassava-to-starch project in West Africa, a pioneering effort to sustainably cultivate 780,000 tons of cassava tubers each year on a single plantation and process into 172,000 tons of premium grade tapioca starch.

The project is situated in the Eastern and Volta Regions of Ghana, spanning more than 20,000 hectares and comprises a cutting-edge processing facility powered by renewable energy, with the primary aim being to create 1,650 direct jobs for locals.

Our vision

It is Frontier AgriVentures’ aspiration that this enterprise will showcase that fully mechanized, carbon positive agriculture is best achieved through economy of scale and expects to serve as a significant driver of local economic growth with a strong focus on community development through focused CSR initiatives.

Technical Partner

Frontier’s technical partner is HVA International, an agricultural project manager with 145 years of experience managing large-scale projects in tropical environments in Emerging and Frontier Markets. HVA International is a global leader in large-scale tropical agriculture and renowned for its operational efficiency.

Founded in 1879 in the Netherlands, HVA International is a leading expert in cassava-to-starch production. HVA has extensive experience in Ghana since the 1970s.

Why Premium Grade Tapioca Starch?

There has been a lot of talk about Africa feeding the world and this is not just idle talk. The demand for tapioca starch worldwide is in the tens of millions of tons and increasing by more than 5% each year. While tapioca starch is not as versatile as corn starch, it is very sought-after by the food and beverage industry where clarity, smooth texture, viscosity, swelling power and neutral taste are important.

Seeing as cassava only thrives in tropical climates, many countries with large populations are forced to import it and must rely heavily on South-East Asia and South America where there are often supply disruptions and high freight costs. Ghana has an ideal climate for cassava and is much closer geographically to Europe and the Eastern seaboard of the United States.

To date there are hardly any reliable, significant producers of premium-grade tapioca starch on the African continent and it is high time that we turn cassava, which we have cultivated for millennia, into a series of high quality, processed products for the world to consume.

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About the Founder and Executive Chairman

Frontier AgriVentures was founded in 2020 by Mr. Osei Owusu-Korkor, a seasoned entrepreneur who divides his time between the United States and Ghana. He has had a successful track record in Ghana for decades and owns Frontier Management & Support Services, which oversees the management, operation, and maintenance of various systems at the International Airport of Accra.

An entrepreneur with a relentless  pursuit of excellence, Osei has been honored with several awards over the years, including the Ghana Telecom Awards’ “Entrepreneur of the Year” and “Company of the Year” titles.

In 2020 Osei decided to focus on large-scale agriculture in Ghana as a means of leaving a lasting legacy. The aim of this venture is to showcase how Ghana needs to make use of its abundant natural resources and provide sustenance to the world while creating employment and empowering locals, not just cultivating food but processing it and making optimal use of technology.

His vision is for Frontier AgriVentures to serve as a benchmark for agripreneurs all over Ghana. Osei is a devout Christian and serves as a lay preacher in Diaspora Ministries which he has founded.

“Location, Location, Location”

After several years of assessing various locations, slightly more than 50,000 acres (20,234 hectares) have been secured adjacent to the Volta River and the newly constructed Tema-Mpakadan Railway, facilitating irrigation and transport of the processed food starch to Tema Port.

Both the farm and processing plant are situated on lands that were unpopulated so no displacement has been required. Nevertheless, extensive community sensitization activities were undertaken together with the Lands Commission to ensure positive stakeholder engagement.

Mr. Osei Owusu-Korkor

Community sensitization meeting with the Lands Commission and Frontier AgriVentures

What makes Frontier AgriVentures unique?

Rather than rely on seasonal, crop rotating, rainfed, manual cultivation, Frontier’s concept is to cultivate continuously year-round by irrigating and relying on a high level of mechanization, thereby ensuring uninterrupted supply of cassava as input for the processing plant.

Production

Thanks to year-round cultivation, our processing plant requires only three production lines, each with a capacity of 200 tons of starch per day. Our maximum capacity will be 172,000 metric tons of premium food starch but we will in due course source adjacent land and commence production pharmaceutical grade starch, organic tapioca starch and cassava protein for the plant protein market.

We do not have outgrowers for the simple reason that the cassava tubers must be processed within 72 hours of harvesting and our quality management protocols dictate that the entire supply chain is under the control of our technical partner.

Why irrigate with center pivots?

Due to climate change causing erratic rainfall patterns and disrupting cassava cultivation in almost all parts of the world, irrigation ensures steady supply and much higher yields, resulting in greater cost efficiency. Center pivots were selected as opposed to drip irrigation even though there is greater water loss because center pivots have a much longer technical lifetime and thereby far lower environmental impact and water scarcity is not an issue in the Volta Region.

Cassava varieties

Frontier relies mainly on the “Game Changer” cassava variety which has a yield of up to 45 tons per hectare and a higher-than-average starch content of 24%-44% as well as resistance to Cassava Mosaic Disease (CMD) which is still prevalent in many parts of the world.

Sustainable & Sound

Frontier’s Project Tapioca is deeply committed to Sustainability and ESG principles, aligning with the global Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). The Project contributes to poverty eradication by creating decent work, implements innovative and sustainable technology, ensures sustainable production and even has a net positive carbon impact. This reflects the project’s vision to have a broad impact on social and environmental well-being.

A notable feature of Project Tapioca is that it has a net positive carbon impact. This is possible because the more than 200 million cassava seedlings that are planted each year sequesters 600,000 tons of CO₂ per year and the biomass left over from the starch production is recycled, converted into biogas that powers the processing facility.

With 1,645 direct jobs created, the project will have a meaningful impact on the local economy and community. CSR initiatives include infrastructure improvements, healthcare, and education so as to significantly uplift the local population’s quality of life. Initiatives also comprise supporting the preservation of locals’ cultural heritage to ensure it is not adversely impacted by project activities.

Frontier of course adheres to Good Agricultural Practices (Global GAP), relying on regenerative, precision agriculture and integrated pest management. No displacement of people from their lands has taken place and 10% of the land has been earmarked for certified organic cultivation.