History Of Palm Oil In Nigeria

Before the pre oil-boom period (before 1968), Nigeria was the leading World Exporter of palm oil. Her country producing about 34.14 % and was followed by Indonesia, Congo and Malaysia which were producing about 23.82 %, 19.15 % and 14.36 % respectively (Kibly, 1968; Commonwealth Economic Committee (CEC), 1966). However, in recent statistics, Nigeria has lost this position where its currently producing about 1 % and still struggling to maintain the domestic consumption as oppose Indonesia and Malaysia that were formerly below it that are now exporting 48.03 % and 41.40 % respectively (Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations Statistics (FAOSTAT), 2013; United State Department of Agriculture (USDA), 2014; GPOC, 2015). In Nigeria, the processing of Fresh Fruit Bunch (FFB) to CPO is majorly carried out by small scale processors, accounting for 80 % of the total production in the country (Emokaro and Ugbekile, 2014, Bbccouk, 2016). This process is done by harvesting semi-wild palm fruits and using manual processing techniques; a

In addition to this fact, other works of literature have tried to reaffirm to us that, the reasons behind the success of Asian countries leading as the highest producers and World Exporter of palm oil for decades (USDA, 2014) is due to the fact that, their palm oil industry is at the forefront of the usage of modern technologies in both tending to the plantation and processing of Fresh Fruit Brunches (FFB), with value been added to the FFB to give the Crude palm oil (CPO) and its by-products of desirable qualities for the domestic and global markets (Hon and Joseph, 2010; Malaysia Palm Oil Board (MPOB),