WorldStage Newsonline– Palm oil stakeholders in Nigeria have solicited the technical support of Council of Palm Oil Producing Countries(CPOPC) to boost palm oil production and improve livelihood of smallholder farmers across the country.
Amb. Alphonsus Inyang, National President of National Palm Produce Association of Nigeria (NPPAN), made the call at the Town Hall meeting of the association, stakeholders in Nigeria’s oil palm industry and CPOPC on Friday in Abuja.
Inyang called for the council’s support in the area of technological transfer, capacity building and provision of hybrid inputs to enhance production capacity of smallholder farmers being the highest producers of oil palm in the country.
He appealed for the formation of global alliance; a congregation of smallholder farmers that would enable them to have a unified voice globally towards policy makers and implementers on issues affecting them.
“The alliance is purposely to share knowledge; information that bothers on the challenges they face in the industry’s growth and aspiration for prosperity.
“The convergence is geared towards good lives and enhance livelihood of households and communities at large.
“We want CPOPC to act as a convergence or as an enabler to make this happen globally; this is one of the things we want you to midwife so that it can help us to move forward.’’
The president said that Nigeria becoming an observer to the council would be paramount to the association and the country in general.
Inyang specifically said training and knowledge transfer had been the major aspiration to increase yield.
Inyang added that Nigeria membership of CPOPC could exposed the country to technologies that would to improve its position in Oil Expansion Ratio (OER) in palm oil and palm kernel.
He said CPOPC’s support would assist the country in fighting poverty, increase lives and livelihood, improvement of health and economic prosperity of rural communities using oil palm.
“Membership of CPOPC will help to increase the position we are currently in terms of increase per hectare, OER for palm oil and palm kernel so that we can increase the living income that goes to our smallholder farmers,” he said.
Earlier, Dr Rizal Lukman, Secretary General, CPOPC, said the council was on tour in Nigeria to seek its collaboration as a member of CPOPC.
Lukman said their visit from Malaysia and Indonesia was purposely to bring back the glory of Nigeria as the origin and number one palm oil producing nation through self-sufficiency and food security to African continent.
According to him, given the importance of palm oil to Malaysia and Indonesia, Nigeria can also make palm oil its backbone as applicable in our countries.
He said the product became the backbone of their countries by increasing yield and sustainability.
On his part, Datuk Wahab, CPOPC Deputy Secretary General, said the council’s objective was to unify all the oil producing countries as one strong voice in addressing a lot of challenges faced by the industry.
He identified some of the challenges as negative perception, climate change, deforestation created by the European so if our voice is one we are stronger
National Patron of NPPAN, Yakubu Dogara, expressed his renewed commitment to ensuring the achievement of all associated value chain of oil palm.
Dogara, a former Speaker of House of Representatives, was represented by former member of the lower chamber, Abubakar Ahmad.
Yakubu assured that he would intensify efforts in ensuring that Nigeria became a member of CPOPC.
“I thank you for visiting us not to collect money but rather to teach us how to fish; your coming is a catalyst to see if we are in the right steps and in the right direction,” he said.
