Agriculture experts have called for more investment in oil palm production to enhance the growth and development of the sector.
They said this in separate interviews with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) on Tuesday in Lagos.
The experts spoke against the backdrop of report published last week that Nigeria imported N299.6 billion of palm oil from 2017 to 2022.
The publication which relied on quarterly reports by the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) indicates that ‘Palm Crude Oil’ is often among the top five imported agricultural products into the country.
Prof. Adetunji Iyiola, a fellow at the National Agriculture and Extension Research Liaison Service (NAERLS), described the importation of oil palm by an agrarian country like Nigeria, as an anomaly.
Iyiola said experts need to develop new strategies to boost local oil palm production in the country.
“The strategy to boost the oil palm sector is to go back to the basics.
“What we need is to make a new habit of investing in oil palm production in Nigeria. It is a very lucrative business.
“We should also invest more in the local processing of oil palm.
“Within the space of four to five years, an investment in oil palm would have begun yielding returns; therefore, we need to go back to the basics.
“We have money bags that should invest in the sector, we should see cultivating oil palm as a long-term investment and should include the entire value chain from production, to processing and export.
“We should not import palm oil as a nation, we have a very fertile land for oil palm production from Benin to Osun to Ondo we have good palm that can grow well,” Iyiola told NAN.’’
According to him, oil palm can be grown and sustained in all the South-South states of the country.
He called on the government to invest in agriculture extension especially in oil palm cultivation.
“The farmers need to be equipped with information on oil cultivation to boost local production.
“Government should also aid the local processing of oil palm, the entire value chain should be boosted for the funds we waste in palm oil importation to be invested back into the economy,’’ he said.
On his part, Mr Akin Alabi, co-founder Corporate Farmers International, said extra effort must be done in the production, processing and marketing of the produce.
Alabi said that the country needs to tackle the issues around production and processing of the commodity to grow the sector.
“In terms of production, we do not have premium seeds. Our research institutes need to work hard in the development of premium seeds around the entire oil palm value chain.
“The seeds we have currently are not the standard seeds we require to boost the sector’s production locally compared to other countries such as Malaysia and other Asian countries.
“Also, we have another problem in terms of production; we do not have enough oil palm producers.
“We have clusters of oil palm producers in the South-East, South-South and South-West.
“We need oil palm producers in large scale to produce palm oil because our land is fertile enough for the produce,” he said.
He noted that Nigeria was yet to tap into the entire value chain of oil palm production.
“Another issue is the local processing of oil palm. As a country, we have not properly tapped into the entire value chain of oil palm production.
“We still rely on local production methods for our domestic consumption.
“We must go beyond oil palm production for consumption to industrial use.
“When we can get this right then we will be able to expand wealth creation across the oil palm value chain,” Alabi said.
