We are harvesting Oil Palm Fruit

INTRODUCTION

Dear farmers, I am here to present to you an economic and money–making crop. Palm fruit is an important economic crop that virtually, all part of the crop is useful. The plant fruit produces oil, karnel, and the chaff that are useful as raw materials for industrial usage.

Palm fruit is a well grown crop in my country, Nigeria. The crop is majorly used for cooking oil production. The crop ripes and Majority of the farmers use crude means such the climbing ropes, to do the harvesting. They also hire palm fruit cutters and pay them to cut down the fruits when it ripes. But this is how the small scale farmers do their their harvesting because they are in predominance.

The plants that produces the fruits are the either the Agriculturally treated plants or the non-treated ones and could either be owned in two ways as:

• An individual could have a palm fruit plantation where the crop is planted in a vast plots of land.

• The second is where the village, community or the government provides a space and plants the crop.
  These are how the plant could be owned.

TYPES OF OIL PALM FRUITS

Three main types of oil palm fruits are known to us namely:

• Pisifera

• Dura

• Tenera

The Pisifera

Pisifera oil palm fruits lacks shell while the palms are females that are not able to bear fruits and when it does bear the fruits, it happens once in a long time.

The Dura
Dura has a thick shell compared to pisifera.
The tenera has now become the most planted species of oil palm seed planyed by farmers. It is a hybrid of the of the pisifera and the dura. It is gotten when the dura inflorescence become pollinated with the pisifera

The pests and diseases of oil palm
Just as other plants have the pests and disease which attacks their healthy growth, the oil palm plants are not exempted. The pests of oil palm plants include:

• Rodents

• Limacodidae

• porcupines

• Beetle

• Oryctes spp

The oil palm diseases
In my country and other nations of Africa, there is one major disease that predominantly infects oil palm. Such disease is caused by fungal known as vascular wilt.

The Rise and Fall Of Oil Palm Produce in My Country

Nigeria is highly blessed with various types of agricultural crops including the oil palm fruits.

Oil Palm was the main foreign exchange revenue for Nigeria in the earlies of 1901. During this period, Nigeria was producing about 43 percent of the world"s palm oil demands in the global palm oil market.

As early as 1901, Nigeria was producing all palm oil sold in the world market and it was a dominant source of foreign exchange earnings.
As the time goes on, there became a rise on the use of palm wine to fufilfil some traditional rites. There was also the discovery of crude oil in the country which now becomes our major economic reliance and foreign exchange earning commodity. These factors contributed to the fall of the country as the world's major oil palm producer. Subsequently, there became a downward shift as farmers of the oil palm plant diverted their attention to other economic ventures accassioned by the discovery of the crude oil.

Currently, only few small scale oil palm plant farmers and producers are remian in the business. These has made the few farmers remaining in the business unable to even meet the local demand not to talk of meeting the global demand.

Finally, Oil palm is an economic plant that if well harnessed, could contribute to sustaining a nation's economy. This is because the **oil, the chaff, the karnel and even the shell could be sold and used in industries or exported and then generate foreign exchange revenue.

In curent dispensation, only few small-scale farmers have oil palm plantations and so the commodity is now scarce making the oil to be sold at exorbitant prices.

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