The Federal Government has announced that it is hoping to engage 2.5 million smallholder households in palm oil production. The households are expected to plant 2.5 million hectares of palm oil plantation between 2026 and 2050.
The government said its target is to create a N20 trillion annual revenue for the country from oil palm.
President of the National Palm Produce Association of Nigeria (NPPAN), Ambassador Alphonsus Inyang, who disclosed this recently in Abuja during a meeting with a delegation of the Council of Palm Oil Producing Countries (CPOPC), from Indonesia and Malaysia, informed that the plan was the outcome of the work of a palm oil technical committee set up by the Minister of Agriculture and Food Security, Senator Abubakar Kyari in 2024.
Inyang, who is the Vice Chairman of the technical committee, said that the work of the committee is almost ready and it will soon release the strategy paper. He said each household is to plant one hectare of palm oil plantation.
He said the government will initially focus on the N20 trillion annual economy from among Nigerian small-holder households while at the same time working on developing side by side with the big players who will be developing plantations.
“It is an achievable thing if we have the will because the most identifiable problem or challenge has always been access to high-yielding planting materials.
“Currently what we have are seeds that give you eight tons a hectare, and sometimes less, whereas in Malaysia and Indonesia, we saw a plantation that gives 38 tons from one hectare because of high-yielding planting material. Here, what we have gives less than 10 tons, some five tons among the small holders.” He said Nigeria stands to benefit immensely if it joins the global oil producing countries as the country would be exposed to both technical and financial support in its quest to reclaim its leadership position as the largest palm oil producing country. “Once we catch up with the local demand, we will no longer spend foreign exchange on importation. That will mean a lot of savings for the country”, he said. “And I’m happy that the target is 10 million tons, which far exceeds that of the local demand. I’m sure with the collaborative efforts of CPOPC and Nigeria, we should be able to achieve such successes.”