PIND’s intervention in the palm oil sector centers around stimulating best management practices among farmers and improving access to oil palm seedlings. Previous interventions included stimulating the use of harvesting technologies and improved processing equipment. In the period under review, Agro-dealers and Farm Service Providers continued with field demonstrations of best management practice as well as providing improved seedling to farmers. Since the COVID-19 restrictions were relaxed, the equipment sellers were able to receive and market their imported Malaysian Knives to the farmers.
One of the strategic focuses of the palm oil value chain activities for 2020 is to collaborate with partners (input companies, agro-dealers, FSPs, Lead Farmers) to expand the Best Management Practices activities across the Niger Delta, as well as monitoring the sustained adoption of the improved technologies in the sector.
Within the reporting period, through the activities of seven agro-dealers and nine farm service providers, 1,756 BMP farmers (590 females) were reached across various locations in the region. Also, 179 farmers adopted improved seeds on their farms and 558 farmers adopted improved harvesting tools bringing the total outreach for Q4 to 2,493.
However, 2,595 farmers who adopted improved harvesting/processing technology in Q1 and Q2 were excluded from the total cumulative by error, which is being updated in Q4 2020. This, together with the outreach result of 8,436 recorded as at Q3, brings the year to date performance to 13,524 which is 104% of the 13,000 direct outreach targets for the year.
