This study assesses the prospects for locally produced food and industrial products from cassava and yam in Nigeria and aimed to find out how knowledge of these products, their markets, and demand for them impacts on farmers and processors choices of enterprises to engage in. The descriptive survey design was adopted for this study. The multi-stage cluster sampling technique was used in selecting the sample for this study made up of 300 farmers and 300 processors from five top producing states of cassava and yam in Nigeria and a structured questionnaire served as the data collection instrument. Findings indicate that a very low percentage of farmers and processors have knowledge of secondary industrial products such as ethanol, glucose, dextrin, and adhesives and most of them engage only in the processing of food products targeted at domestic markets. Policies aimed at promoting upstream linkages between industrial users and farmers/processors to encourage knowledge spillover down the value chain and policies targeted at building the capacity of farmers/processors to engage in secondary processing were recommended as possible solutions to this situation.
Keywords: Knowledge; Entrepreneurship Prospects; Industrial products; Value chain.
