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| Oil Palm Plantation |
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| Fresh Fruit Bunch & Fruitlets |
Oil palm (Elaeis guineensis) is an important cash
crop native to tropical region of West Africa. You can secure your future with
investment in oil palm plantation and processing which has high capacity to
generate long term revenue. Every part of oil palm is money. These economic
trees have successfully been grown in Nigeria, Malaysia, Indonesia, Thailand,
etc. Malaysia is well advanced in oil palm technology and has used oil palm to
develop her economy over the years. Oil
palm has many derivatives; the two important value added products are palm oil & palm kernel oil, these products are useful ingredients used in Food, Cosmetics,
Lubricant and Energy industries, as population increases, the demand for oil palm
value added products in local and international markets will continue to soar,
hence the need to start investing in oil palm plantation and processing.
‘Palm oil is one of best oil
to consume and is as good as olive oil from health point of view, FAO
recommends that oil should take the tune of 30% of calories intake each day’
said Yusof Basiron, CEO, Malaysian Palm Oil Council.
Other derivatives from oil
palm include, wood, fuel substances, palm wine, woven basket, broom, PKC, stearin
and host of others.
Tenera variety of oil palm
produces high quantity of palm oil. You can get Tenera variety from NIFOR or
any other input suppliers from N120 – N150 per seedling. You can also buy sprouted
oil palm nuts and plant in a nursery bag to reduce cost. The seedling stays in
the nursery for 12 – 18 months before it is planted in the field (9mx9m spacing)
where it produces fruits 2.5 years later. The tree can grow up to 20 - 30m in
height. With good agronomic practices and management, a mature tree bears 10-15
Fresh Fruit Bunch (FFB) in a year (that is, 10 - 20 kg & 1000 - 2000 Fruitlets)
and a FFB costs about N150 or more, one hectare will accommodate 143 stands, then
from one hectare you could make N268,125
on average in a year. The economic life of an oil palm tree is 20–30 years of its
life-span of 200 years. Further processing into palm oil will increase
accruable revenue. 4 - 7 tons of palm oil can be produce from one hectare per
annum. One ton of palm oil can sell for N150,000, then in a year you can make up
to N825,000 on average. Imagine, what
you will be generating from 50 - 100 hectares or even more.
Major equipment needed to
set up 10MT/Day Oil Mill include, Bunch Stripper/Sanitizer; Steam Boiler;
Sterilizers; Digester/Auto Screw Press; Cake Breaker; Fibre Separator/Cyclone;
Nut Polishing Unit; Nut Recovering Unit; Oil Clarifier; Conveyor; Control Panel
and Electric Motors. With one million Naira, you can acquire those assets from
local fabricators.
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| Photo credit: Dike; Oil Mill |
In Nigeria, several companies
have been taking advantage of value chain opportunity in oil palm plantation. Some
of value chain functions in oil palm include; Input supply (e.g. NIFOR [Tenera];
Presco Oil [IRHO Tissue culture]; Okomu Oil [Okomu-Sucfino]; Imo Palm
[Costa-Rica] etc.) Production & Processing (e.g. Presco Oil; Okomu Oil;
Rison Palm; Imo Palm, Golden Oil; Sudit Oil etc.) Supporting services (Hytech
Engineering; Basicon Engineering; Integrated
System Ltd, etc). Other value chain functions include, End market consumer; Wholesale,
Retailing, Business environment and Business organization membership.
