Oil palm farm systems in Africa

The primary unit of production of the palm oil industry is the farm where the oil palm tree is cultivated to produce palm fruits. There are also wild groves of oil palm. The farm units are of different sizes and may be classified as small, medium, and large-scale estates.
The wild groves, as the name implies, grow untended in the forest. They are found in clusters and are mainly the result of natural seed dispersal. Dura, the main variety found in the groves, for decades has been the source of palm oil - well before modern methods of oil palm cultivation were introduced to Africa in the second quarter of the 20th century.

The other varieties are Pisifera and Tenera, which is a hybrid variety obtained by crossing Dura and Pisifera. The Dura has a large nut with a thick shell and thin mesocarp. The Pisifera is a small fruit with no shell. By crossing the Dura with Pisifera a fruit is obtained with a thick mesocarp containing much more oil and fat (chemically saturated oil) than either of its parents. The Tenera nut is small and is easily shelled to release the palm kernel. The Tenera palm kernel is smaller than the Dura kernel although the Tenera bunch is much larger than Dura. In all, the Tenera is a much better variety for industrial and economic purposes.

Unfortunately, traditional farmers in Africa have not embraced the Tenera because consumers complained that the palm oil produced from the variety was too fatty. This means that when the oil cools to ambient temperature it ‘goes to sleep’ or solidifies instead of remaining fluid and red. The oil did not have the right taste as oil or as a soup base. Extension officers failed to position the Tenera as high-yielding industrial purpose oil, as opposed to oil for home cooking. The negative perception of Tenera led to its slow adoption and the failure of Africa to maintain its lead in palm oil production.

Plantation farming is a new phenomenon to West African culture. In most parts of Africa the farm culture is basically subsistence. The family cultivates a small plot for their food needs and interplant tree crops. After three years or more the tree crop takes over the plot and the farmer moves to another. The new plot may be acquired from the Chief in a location far removed from the old plot. Farm-holdings are therefore small and scattered. The land tenure system does not permit large-scale farming unless the government steps in to acquire the land for public use. Thus it is difficult to think of one family owning a large contiguous estate suitable for plantation farming.

A small-scale palm oil farm may cover 7.5 hectares. The farm’s production of fruits may be processed by the farmer, using the traditional method of palm oil extraction, or sold to other processors. During the lean season the farmer sells to the small-scale processors at prices higher than those offered to the larger mills. The small-scale farms are normally well maintained even though they may not adopt modern agronomic practices such as application of fertilizer, cover cropping, etc. to improve soil fertility and yields.

The medium-scale farm ranges from 10 to 500 hectares. This type of farm normally uses modern agronomic practices such as plant spacing, cover cropping, fertilization, ring weeding, pruning, etc. Some farmers in this category own processing facilities and therefore use their own output as well as buying from neighbours. Those who do not own mills face marketing problems during the peak season when fruit is abundant and processors do not have to forage for raw materials.

Because the fruits are perishable and lose weight once harvested, farmers need prompt payment and evacuation of their fruits. If the roads are impassable they may suffer great loss of produce and income making it difficult for these farmers to finance their operations. As a result a number of farmers in this category are unable to adequately maintain their farms, resulting in decreased output from year to year.

Large-scale farms cover an area in excess of 500 hectares. These are state owned enterprises which were established to meet the internal consumption needs of the country and provide a surplus for export. The estates are well run and maintained. They employ the best farming techniques and employ highly skilled professionals to work their operations. Unfortunately they are always considered intruders in the communities where they operate, simply because they employ people who are not natives of the immediate catchment area.

Most estates are being privatised or sold to private interests in an effort to wean the respective governments from directly engaging in competitive businesses. Most estates had nucleus farms with out-growers and private smallholders supplying raw palm fruit to the central processing factory. The processing facilities were generally in the large-scale category.

Because of privatization exercises some large-scale processing operations have closed, leaving plantation output to be sold to small-scale processors. It is not unusual today to find many small-scale processing operations exploiting the splitting up of a plantation estate. The Republic of Benin, Cameroon and Ghana abound with examples of this type of take-over by small-scale operators.