It turns out, really great.
Our Palm Oil team has been hard at work these past few years, promoting the use of the Mechanical Adjustable Harvester and the Malaysian Knife. Technology has been a huge challenge to farmers across all agricultural sectors. In palm oil, the inefficiency that comes with the predominance of traditional technologies like climbing means a large percentage of the palm fruit from oil palm trees do not ever get harvested. Fixing this problem, along with more efficiently processing of palm oil for industrial and food markets, will go a long way to addressing the 200,000-ton shortfall between demand and supply of palm oil in Nigeria while increasing farmers and processors’ incomes.
Related:
PIND, NIFOR Improve Farmers’ Access to Funding for Technologies in Palm Oil
Thanks to our tireless work with local partners to link farmers to these harvesting technologies, 1,591 farmers had access to these technologies by the end of 2016, increasing incomes by N107,375,476 as a result. No wonder the farmers love it!
At our recent event on September 19, 2017, at the National Institute for Oil Palm Research (NIFOR), we brought together farmers from across the Niger Delta as well as commercial actors to share their experiences with improved processing machines.
Access to finance is a major challenge facing farmers who want to improve their output using improved technologies, and any intervention in the space has to also address that. At the event, we got Oyeniyi Ayodeji from Lift Above Poverty (LAPO) Microfinance to to speak to farmers about their options.
