Oil palm apex board proposed

A strong proposal has been made for the establishment of an independent apex body to oversee the development of the Ghana’s oil palm industry.

Stakeholders made up of industry experts, operators, consultants, exporters and government officials made this proposal at the first national oil palm stakeholder workshop intended to help come out with a master-plan that would guide the development of the sector.

“The time has come for the country to establish a specialized board made up of industry experts to drive the sector’s growth and to meet international best practice, Colin Watson, MASDA Consultants-UK, lead consultant developing the oil palm master-plan told B&FT.

“Ghana is a net importer of oil palm, the order of 50,000 metric tones per year-a figure that is estimated to hit over 150,000 metric tones by the next 15 years. This demand would be driven by increased population growth, urbanization, and per-capita consumption in the country.” he projected.

Mr. Kwasi Ahwoi, Minister of Food and Agriculture (MOFA) said, an estimated unmet demand of oil palm in ECOWAS sub-region is between 850,000 tones and 1,000,000 tones annually, a huge market which the country can take advantage of if properly managed.

“The country is said to have a total area of 305,758 hectors of oil palm. More than 80 percent of this is cultivated by private small-scale farmers who mostly use volunteer of unimproved planting materials. This has contributed to the very low productivity of the Ghanaian oil palm industry, he observed.

He indicated that the development of the master-plan document which would be the blue print of the country’s oil palm sub-sector’s development would seek to address challenges of the sector as well as take competitive and comparative advantages.

The policy document is being spearheaded by Ministry of Agriculture with support of Agence Francaise de Developpement and was commissioned in July 2010.

He revealed that government’s prime interest in the master-plan is to improve cooporatin and coordination among all stakeholders along the entire oil palm value chain with the view to increasing productivity, efficiency, profitability and employment.

“Increasing profitability is one of the most efficient and sustainable ways Ghana can use to capture the benefits of the unprecedented high prices for palm oil and its derivatives including palm kernel oil for the benefits of all the players in the palm oil value chain and the Ghanaian economy,” said Mr. Ahwoi.

Government has up-to-date spent 2.4 million euros on the oil palm project and is expected to commit additional one million euros on its production.

Mr. Joseph Baidoo-Williams, Head of Tree Crops Development Unit, MOFA in an interview with B&FT explained that the master-plan will focus on access to financing, certification, land-use policy, technology transfer, and infrastructure development from the farm to the port, as well as pricing mechanism and marketing.

“The policy document will seek to outline set of projects and programmes to be executed within the next 15 time frame. This is aimed at maximising development outcomes for the communities while supporting smaller businesses, as well as alleviating poverty,” Mr. Baidoo-Williams said.

The country’s first international commercial trade in oil palm took place in 1820.Starting from the wild harvesting, oil palm evolved into agricultural crop and plantation were established by 1850. This led to oil palm becoming the principal export of Gold Coast.

In 1880s, oil palm accounted for 75 percent of the country’s export revenue until it was overtaken by cocoa exports in 1911.