A game-changer

 The Oil Palm industry is obviously an imminent economic game-changer if the nation gives it the attention needed to enable it attract both technical and financial support.

There is high potential for the crop to take over from cocoa, which is currently the country’s highest foreign exchange earner. The crop, in the 1880s, accounted for 75 percent of the country’s export revenue until it was overtaken by cocoa exports in 1911.

Available research indicates that an estimated total land area of 305,758 hectares is cropped to oil-palm, with a production level for palm oil of under 300,000m/t -- leaving a supply deficit of 35,000mt. While there is an increasing demand trend, especially in the healthcare, pharmaceutical and body-lotion industries, the deficit could hit more than 100,000m/t in the not too distant future.  

The crop’s plantations raise the living standards of rural people by providing employment to thousands and alleviating poverty. Palm plantations, schemed smallholders, independent farms, outgrowers and individual farmers create employment in the palm segment for more than 290,000 people. 

Refineries required to refine the current crude palm oil production of the country may not engage more than 200 workers. This shows that plantations would create employment for the teeming youth to halt urban drift. 

This development gives a clear picture of the enormous opportunities that abound in the country’s tree-crop sector, where the country enjoys a competitive location for oil palm development compared to its immediate neighbours and the top global producers. 

It also has advantage of developing local capacity for breeding better planting material; new high-yielding varieties developed elsewhere can be accessed through government-to-government facilitation to double the yield in Ghana. 

We are worried that the nation has neglected this cash crop for a very long time, as the focus has always been on the cocoa, gold and newly-discovered oil for external inflows to support the economy.

We urge our policymakers to look beyond the traditional commodities as the sheer number of jobs this crop creates makes it the darling of any nation that wants to shore-up employment figures. 

Serious economies in the likes of the Malaysia and Thailand have been credited to the cultivation of this crop, which the Malaysians adopted from Ghana. Farmers in Malaysia are well-to-do because of this crop. That country boasts its strong agricultural backbone because of this crop -- and this paper is asking if Ghana is at the cusp of making history again?

 A history of carrying through implementation of this all-embracing Oil Palm Master Plan and positively advancing the oil palm industry, or going the well-known direction of keeping the Master Plan document on the shelves, at the offices of powerbrokers, to gather dust…and subsequently in the future brood over our failure to implement another great plan.

This Paper would like to remind the Ministers of Trade and Industry, and Agriculture, Mr. Ekwow Spio-Garbrah and Mr. Fifi Kwetey, of their pledge to revive development of the crop and give it the needed financial and governmental support to promote the industry during the Association’s launch.  

In view of all this potential, government must be serious with its commitment to the oil palm sector as it holds tremendous potential to create jobs, reduce poverty and help with balance of payments to shore-up the cedi. 

The nation must also consider eliminating major challenges including lack of subsidised fertiliser for farmers, lack of funding, and access to land to immediately position the sector and make it attractive for a possible take-off.