An average of 96, 114 metric tonnes of crude palm oil valued at N128 billion ($87.25 million) were ferried to Nigerian port in six months from Malaysia. Findings revealed that 16,019 tonnes of the produce were shipped monthly to the country due to shortage in local production for domestic and industrial consumption as price of palm oil reached $887 per tonnes. Between January 2023 and June 2024, crude palm oil import to the country from Malaysia was 624,196 tonnes.....CONTINUE READING THE ARTICLE FROM THE SOURCE
In 2023, 304,043 tonnes of the produce were ferried to Nigerian ports, while 227,035 tonnes were imported in 2022.
Also, Malaysian palm oil export to Africa at the beginning of 2024 recorded an increase of 24 per cent of which most the volume went to East Africa (63 per cent), North and East Africa accounted for 15 per cent each, South Africa four per cent and Central Africa three per cent.
Kenya, Djibouti, Egypt, Tanzania and Madagascar accounted for 71 per cent of the total Malaysian palm oil going into Africa market as Nigeria imported $600 million on palm oil in 2023.
Recall that palm oil stakeholders in the country had last week solicited the technical support of Council of Palm Oil Producing Countries (CPOPC) to boost production and improve livelihood of smallholder farmers across the country.
The National President of National Palm Produce Association of Nigeria (NPPAN), Amb. Alphonsus Inyang, called for the council’s support in the area of technological transfer, capacity building and provision of hybrid inputs to enhance production capacity of smallholder farmers being the highest producers of oil palm in the country.
He called for the formation of global alliance of smallholder farmers to enable them have a unified voice globally towards policy makers and implementers on issues affecting them.
He said: “The alliance is purposely to share knowledge; information that bothers on the challenges they face in the industry’s growth and aspiration for prosperity. The convergence is geared towards good lives and enhance livelihood of households and communities at large.
“We want CPOPC to act as a convergence or as an enabler to make this happen globally; this is one of the things we want you to midwife so that it can help us to move forward.’’
The president stressed that Nigeria becoming an observer to the council would be paramount to the association and the country in general.
Inyang stressed that the training and knowledge transfer had been the major aspiration to increase yield, saying that Nigeria membership of CPOPC could exposed the country to technologies that would to improve its position in Oil Expansion Ratio (OER) in palm oil and palm kernel.
According to him, CPOPC’s support would assist the country in fighting poverty, increase lives and livelihood, improvement of health and economic prosperity of rural communities using oil palm.
Also, Secretary General of CPOPC, Dr Rizal Lukman said that the council was on tour in Nigeria to seek its collaboration as a member of CPOPC, noting that their visit from Malaysia and Indonesia was purposely to bring back the glory of Nigeria as the origin and number one palm oil producing nation through selfsufficiency and food security to African continent.
According to him, “given the importance of palm oil to Malaysia and Indonesia, Nigeria can also make palm oil its backbone as applicable in our countries.” Lukman added that the product became the backbone of their countries by increasing yield and sustainability.
The CPOPC Deputy Secretary General, Datuk Wahab, explained that the council’s objective was to unify all the oil producing countries as one strong voice in addressing a lot of challenges faced by the industry.
He identified some of the challenges as negative perception, climate change, deforestation created by the European so if our voice is one we are stronger.
National Patron of NPPAN, Yakubu Dogara, expressed his renewed commitment to ensuring the achievement of all associated value chain of oil palm.
