Nigeria is the only major palm oil producing country without a replanting plan – OPGAN President

JOE ONYIUKE is the National President of the Oil Palm Growers Association of Nigeria (OPGAN) and the Vice Chairman of the Nigerian Association of Chambers of Commerce, Industry, Mines and Agriculture (NACCIMA). In this interview with JOSEPHINE OKOJIE-OKEIYI and FAITH DONATUS, he spoke about the country’s palm oil industry and how Nigeria can regain its status in the comity of producing countries.

What is the current state of the Nigerian oil palm production?

Nigeria is trying to reduce its import dependency. Currently, we produce about 1.5 million tonnes annually and our demand is about 2.4 million tonnes. This means we import about 900,000 metric tons.

The supply -demand gap is still very huge.

But there has been tremendous improvement from where we used to be. We’re number one in Africa and fifth globally. Lots of plantations have sprung up with government policies and support.

Smallholder farmers have also considerably increased their levels of production, as most of them are now seeking improved planting materials.

Similarly, we are now having plantations in states that are outside the traditional oil palm belt in the country, such as Kogi, Taraba, Kwara, Kaduna, Adamawa, Niger and Nasarawa states.

However, we are not where we ought to be as regards our palm oil output. We are the only country that is a major oil palm producer without a replanting plan. If we must further increase our oil palm production, we must have a replanting plan as a country.

As an association, we have developed a national oil palm replanting plan for five years, to replant 1.5 million hectares across our member states in Nigeria. You know, the smallholder farmers control 80 percent.

The country has one of the best palm oil seedlings and it was developed by the Nigerian Institute for Oil Palm Research (NIFOR). Despite NIFOR being neglected and grossly underfunded, the human capital we have there is incredible.

The research institute has developed an improved seedling variety that can give farmers up to 20 to 25 MT of fresh fruit or 4 to 5 metric tonnes of oil per hectare and that can grow well outside the traditional belt with lower rainfall to further boost our local production.

How can Nigeria regain its production status in the comity of palm oil-producing countries?
We must educate smallholder farmers on good agronomy practices to double their current yield per hectare.

Also, there must be adequate and single-digit funding for the industry. Funding is key; the banks will not give loans for long-term investments such as palm oil and especially to smallholders, because of a lack of structure.
Though we have the structure, we are asking the government to give a Certificate of Occupancy (C of O) to smallholders so they can use it as collateral for loans in money deposit banks.

Land is an asset and an investment. All over the world, they can value the plantations of smallholder farmers. The plantation can be valued based on the age of the trees, the species and the number of hectares.

Smallholder farmers can take insurance against fire, which is the greatest risk to any oil palm plantation, though the oil palm tree is so rugged that it can also recover from such a calamity after some months, as if nothing had happened to it.

Also, access to land is another major issue we must address as a country if we are to increase our palm production. We must review the Land Use Act of 1978.

With our youthful population, we have the energy and the land. All we need to do is organise the small oil palm growers, educate them, and provide the support they need to scale with existing plantations.

If we do 1.5 million hectares in five years, we’ll overtake Thailand and Colombia, which are third and fourth, respectively, and we will become world number three. It is ambitious but very doable because we are in a hurry to catch up and recover lost grounds.

We once controlled and contributed 40 percent of global supply, but now can only produce miserly two percent. If we can retain the over $600 million annual importation through our rugged and determined replanting and repopulating of our ageing plantations, the impact will be felt through different industries/sectors of the economy.

Why do women farmers lack access to land?

All lands belong to the state government, including the one where you build your house. Access to land has been a major issue, and it is why people have been calling for a review of the Land Use Act.

Access to land is a major problem for agriculture in general. As an association, we are addressing the issues of access to land through advocacy.

Women contribute about 70 percent of the work on the farms. They are our major pillars, and we do everything to support them, especially within the association.

Does Nigeria need to create an oil palm council to manage the industry?

An oil palm council is good, but at this level of our production, we need to improve and exponentially grow our production capacity. What happened to the commodity board we had before for our cash/tree crops? Mismanagement and corruption killed it.

The board, which was supposed to work in favour of farmers, worked against them. It was a major disincentive for farmers. Before Malaysia and Indonesia established an oil palm board and council, they had drastically improved their production.

Let us put all our energy and resources into doubling our production. The Council is good and must be inclusive of all stakeholders to promote and regulate the industry without interfering with prices and creating exclusive licensed merchants.

The forces of demand and supply must determine prices so that smallholders are not forced to sell at capped prices, while they are not able to afford other articles and goods made from palm oil derivatives because those prices are not pegged.

With government support, the right policies and investments, we can achieve it. We can generate and retain over $600 million from oil palm alone for the economy, and you know what it means for our gross domestic product, while our export potential is about $10 billion.

We also need to build credible data banks for the industry. We have several data sources for our production alone. Nobody knows which one is correct because we rely on data from foreign bodies and Google. Most times, we rely on estimates. How can we plan our lives effectively with such a weak foundation?

The government must pay serious attention to tree crops if it truly wants to diversify away from oil. Agriculture is the low hanging fruit we need to create jobs, drive GDP growth and industrialisation, alleviate poverty, increase government revenues, and boost foreign exchange earnings.

Encouraging smallholder farmers to combine growing perennial crops with Tree Crops will genuinely lift people out of poverty and end the era of constantly recycling poverty among our smallholder farmers.

The tree crops being generational wealth, ensure that smallholder farmers with their very limited land holdings can actually earn substantial income from tree crops and still grow their traditional perennial crops. Tree crops should also be used to fight desertification, especially in the northern parts of the country.

The federal government should set up an agency and commission under the Federal Ministry of Agriculture to take care of tree crops independently. Tree crops are very important for our economic growth.

Oil palm prices are falling currently, and there is an influx of smuggled oil into the country. How is this affecting smallholder farmers?

We are currently in the peak season, where prices usually drop. Yes, there is a high influx of smuggled oil palm because our borders are porous. The impact of the falling prices is felt more by the large plantation owners than the smallholder farmers.

It is important to start that we have three markets in Nigeria, domestic, industrial and export markets. There is hardly any family in Nigeria that does not consume palm oil daily.

The smallholder farmers provide most of the palm oil in this market. Our sister association, Plantation Forum of Nigeria, POFON, whose members represent the large estates majorly feed the industrial market.

How can the government attract youths into oil palm production?

Governments have to develop and support mechanisation and also give the youths access to lands. With this, agriculture becomes attractive to the youths. Youths need innovation to do farming differently from the older generation of farmers, who were mostly entangled in poverty.

The government must give assistance for finance and land. A lot of youths want to go into farming but lack the capital to venture into it. The government needs to assist the youths with low interest finance to establish and grow their businesses.

Youth need mechanisation, innovative ways to do agriculture, finance, infrastructure and a guaranteed market for their produce.

Also, the government should adopt the Cross-River model, where the government is supporting youths and smallholder farmers with highly subsidised seedlings from NIFOR to engage them in palm oil production in the state.

What are the major challenges oil palm farmers experience?

The investment capital for palm trees is huge. That is why farmers are not replacing old trees with new hybrid seeds.

The government needs to provide long term finance for oil palm farmers at single digit interest rate and also for the procurement of modern and efficient processing machinery with storage to eliminate the heavy losses they suffer from post-harvest losses.

Smallholder farmers produce 80 percent of the country’s palm oil needs, but lose about 50 percent during processing owing to manual methods of processing. But with access to long term finance, farmers can purchase efficient processing machines for processing.

Processing, which is value addition, is where the money is, but with crude methods, farmers’ livelihoods would not be positively affected.
Access to land and improved tenera (hybrid) seedlings remains elusive in most parts of the country. There is a dearth of standard nurseries across the country that will ensure oil palm farmers have access to certified planting materials to replant/repopulate their ageing palm trees.