At a time their colleagues in countries like Malaysia and Indonesia are turning their love for oil palm production into a huge business enterprise that earns them local and hard currencies, farmers in Obrenyi, a Federal Government-owned farm estate located in Obrubra Local Government Area of Cross Rivers State, are sinking deeper into poverty, abandoning their farms and swearing that their children will have nothing to do with the venture. INNOCENT DURU, who visited the over 1, 500 hectare farm estate, in this report, examines the factors responsible for the farmers’ frustration and the implication for palm oil production in the area and the country at large.
Martins Ovet took to oil palm farming with huge expectations. He had heard about how the produce is hotly demanded for by individuals and several manufacturing companies within and outside the country and decided to give it his all.
Today, his expectations are fast fading away as his hope of making a fortune out of it is becoming a mirage. Instead of having his standard of living improved following his huge investment in the business, he has rather slid below poverty line.
Wearing a dejected look, Martins said: “I have become poorer than I was before I came into oil palm production. I left my petty business to take to oil palm production because I was convinced that it is a venture that is capable of changing my fortunes within a short time. To my chagrin, the reverse has been the case 10 years after. I now find it even more difficult to feed my family, pay school fees and attend to other things in my home. This is a Federal Government farm estate but there is no single support from them to the farmers. This is not how to promote agriculture at all.”
According to Martins, “The idea behind the project is to enhance the supply of palm oil in the society but the enabling environment was not produced. The structure of the estate does not make the venture profitable. Instead of producing in commercial quantity, the situation here makes us appear like subsistence farmers. Most of us don’t have anything to show for our labour at the end of every planting season. I am looking for job as I am now. If I get a job right now, I will quit farming. Many colleagues have taken up paid jobs.
This has grave implication for the supply of palm oil in the society. Once the farmers abandon their the farms, there will be scarcity of the product. This is partly why there was scarcity last year. It can be worse if the condition does not change.”
Like somebody that was stung by scorpion, Martins boiled with rage when asked if he would want his children to take after him. “God forbid! Why are you wishing me bad luck? Do you want my family to be perpetually poor? It wouldn’t have been a bad idea if the enabling environment is provided. Oil palm business is good but we have been neglected here. As it is now, any of my children that takes to this venture is on his own.”
The outburst of the daughter, Blessing, showed she did not need the father’s advice to despise the business. Her countenance tells it all that oil palm production is not the way to go for her as she repeatedly stretched her neck and looked at the bag of kernels she angrily dumped on the ground with disdain. Hissing at regular intervals, she said: “Never will I invest my time and life in this kind of venture. I love agriculture but I don’t pray to do this kind of laborious job for a living and will never have anything to do with it except the condition under which it is done is improved.
“ I have read about other countries where poor farmers rose within a short time with the help of their governments to become rich people who employ thousands of people to work for them. This oil palm production is what some communities and countries live on. The reverse is the case here. Everything is done primitively here and nobody cares. You trek a long distance to get to the farm, you harvest manually, and use your head to carry heavy sacks filled with the nuts from one end of the farm to the other. Because of this, a good part of the harvest is wasted. It is enervating and discouraging. No young person will gladly come into this life of suffering in the name of being a farmer or promoting agriculture.”
With frustration written all over her face, she said: “The government is not sincere about its trumpeted promise to use agriculture to replace crude oil. This oil palm estate is big enough to produce a large quantity of palm oil that will cater for the needs of the people. There was no reason for a bottle of palm oil to hit N600 recently. It is the kind of problems we are facing here that was responsible for such. If nothing is done to improve the situation, the problem will worsen over a period of time.”
The Nation’s meeting with Chief Francis Isek shows he is a man that is displeased with what he loves doing most. His face wore wrinkles as he tiredly struggled with the heavy load of palm kernel sack dangling on his head when our reporter ran into him inside the large oil palm estate.
Coming with him were his overtly emasculated children who also clutched bags of palm kernels on their heads. Frustration, pains and stark hopelessness were all he could see from the business venture that offered him much hope earlier. One concern that certainly ran through Isek’s mind as he and his children staggered from the farm to where they were stockpiling the produce was when his fruitless labour would come to an end.
After dumping the heavy load on his head, Isek heaved a sigh of relief as he shared his frustration with our reporter. “I will never allow my children to take to this kind of business”, he began on a despondent note.
He continued: “I have been involved in this business for more than 10 years but have nothing to show for it. Oil palm farming is naturally a lucrative business because everybody consumes it and it is also in large demand by many companies. But the herculean challenges we have here are pauperising us and discouraging so many people from continuing with the venture. If the venture were booming as it should be, we would not have hectares of land that are lying fallow.
“In fact, many farmers have out of frustration abandoned their farms to look for other means of making ends meet because their efforts and investments yielded no results.” One of the problems confronting the farmers according to Isek is the poor state of the road into and across the farm.
He said: “The road is not good; it is totally impassable during the rainy season. During that time, vehicles don’t risk coming here. Any vehicle that tries it gets stuck in thick mud. This has happened several times and has consequently discouraged vehicle owners from coming here. Commercial drivers avoid this place like a plague. Mentioning the name of this place to them is like asking them to enter into where people from Ebola patients kept.
“Unfortunately, most of us are poor and cannot afford a tyre. We trek long distances to get to the farms, especially during the rainy season and carry the bunches on our heads. As you can see, the farm is very big. If you check it, how many of these would you be able to carry in a day? Before you move from the farm to the point of milling the oil three times in a day, you are fagged out and have to leave the remaining ones in the farm.
“For example, I harvested some bunches last week but left them on the farm because I was indisposed. When I came this morning, I saw that so many others have ripened. How to move them out is now a big challenge. If it were during the rainy season, everything would have been washed away by flood and I will have nothing to show for my efforts at the end of the day. This has always been the case during the rainy season and it makes it impossible for us to put food on the table for our families.”
In spite of her huge investment on the farm, another farmer, Beatrice Orime, lamented that she finds it difficult to pay her bills. Like Isek, she also said: “My children will never go through this kind of suffering. God will never allow my children to work like an elephant as I am doing and eat like an ant. With all the efforts and resources I put into the farm, am I suppose to find it difficult to pay children’s school fees? Those of us who farm here should ordinarily have no business with poverty because we have a product that is in hot demand. Unfortunately, poverty is stuck to our skin like leech.
“I have four hectares of land on which I planted oil palms. I work very hard and spend a lot of money to take care of the farm but the condition in the estate frustrates the whole efforts.”
Apart from the poor state of the road, Orime said: “The oil farm estate is prone to torrential flooding. Whenever there is heavy rainfall, the flood can rise to your chest and when this happens, we can abscond from the farm for more than a week. This affects the farm and our produce. We have severally complained to the necessary quarters but nothing came out of it. Government officials have been here on many occasions to see things for themselves. They have made series of promises and did nothing thereafter.”
An encounter with Oyo Mayama opened a new episode to the frustrations of the farmers. The visibly worried farmer spoke about how he and his colleagues lose a large percentage of the processed oil. He said: “My morale has been dampened over the years by the discouraging condition under which we carry out our work here. With the increase in the demand for palm oil in the country, we are supposed to be living comfortably by now because we have good harvest. We produce good palm oil but much of them doesn’t get to the market because of the condition of the road. After labouring hard to plant the palms and working like jackals to harvest the seeds and produce several gallons of palm oil, moving them from the farm to the market is always burdensome. At times, more than 60 percent of the gallons of oil you have produced could fall and break. When this happens, your investments will go down the drain.
“This is always worse if you have lost part of your harvest to flood. This is why we have remained poor and hungry when we ought to be living in affluence. Many people have given up after recording series of losses. I am still here because I am yet to get something else to do. The moment I have something that will fetch me good money comes, I will gladly quit.”
Also bemoaning her plight, Monica Okora, attributed part of their problems to the state of the bridges linking some of the farms. She said: “I have one hectare on which I planted oil palms. I spend a lot of money maintaining the farm but we don’t get any support from anywhere. Nobody helps us with fertiliser or pays attention to our cries. We suffer a lot here. Some of the farms are linked by bridges that have collapsed. No vehicle can pass through the bridge even in the dry season. Any vehicle that does will fall into it.
“Many farmers fall into the collapsed bridge from time to time. The dilapidated bridge could simply be described as a death trap. This discourages many people from passing through the bridge to get to their farms.”
It was also a tale of regret for Alice Solomon who said that her returns from the investment have fallen short of her expectations. “I have been farming here since 1994. I have four hectares of land but a good number of my harvest is wasted annually. If not for the challenges, I should be earning more than N2. 4million annually.
“On a good day, I sell palm oil twice a month and on each occasion, I make about N100,000. But this is not always the case. The gains you make when the situation is good are always lost when the challenges rear their heads. We could have handled the problems by ourselves if it were what individuals can handle. But the challenge is massive. Is it the hills you want to talk about or the collapsed bridge? Is it the flood or the bad road? The problems are multifaceted and capital intensive.”
Giving a background information about how the farm came into existence, the estate manager, Ferdinand Eko, who works with the Federal Ministry of Agriculture , Department of Rural Development, said: “The project has been in existence since 1993\94. The land was originally occupied by the Eastern Nigeria Cocoa Development Corporation. There was a crisis that raged for many years and scared everybody away from the farm. It was thereafter that the Federal Government returned to the farm to grow palms through the National Agriculture Land Authority. That is why the place is an oil palm estate today.
“The farm is above 1,000 hectares out of which more than 750 hectares have been developed. The other undeveloped areas are still there. We allow auxiliary farmers who are into annual and perennial crops to work there until such lands are allocated.”
In line with the submissions of the farmers, Eko said: “The major problem confronting the farm as the people must have told you is the challenge of accessibility to the farm. When it rains, nobody passes through the road because of the nature of the soil. At the peak of the rainy season, we have a lot of challenges. Flood on many occasions prevent farmers from accessing their farms. There is also the need for bridges in some areas on the farm. There is a bridge called Achura that cuts across the entire land of the estate, it is a mere wood we are using on it now. It is in a bad state as we speak.
“The farmers also need some assistance in the form of micro loans to enable them take care of their crops. They need to get chemicals and do some other things. The farmers really lack all these at the moment.”
The ministry, according to him, “has been carrying out extension services by guiding the farmers on how to manage their farms well. If the estate is well funded, honestly, the problem of no oil in the market will not be there. From here alone, we can produce 10 tons of oil each day. We also have other food crops alone that would have increased food supply in the society if not for the challenges.
“We long for the Malaysian approach to oil palm production. There is an international organisation that has been coming to help us. For the past two years, they have been training farmers on the Best Management Practice (BMP). Even though, they have not been able to give cash to farmers, the farmers have improved on the way they handle their farms. They have taken some of us to Ghana where we saw how things are done. We have been able to inculcate this knowledge into our farmers.”
Eko admitted: “Things are really very difficult for the farmers as they would really have loved to produce more and take to the market to earn higher income with which they can improve their families’ living standard.”
The farmers, he said, can improve the quality and quantity of their produce by practising the BMP. “If they practise the BMP that has to do with pruning, maintenance of the estate as in brushing, ring-weeding and fertiliser application; all these will increase their yield. When the yield increases, the farmers’ income will be enhanced. The quality of the oil has to do with the machines we use in milling the oil. For now, we are still using hand to do the turning and forcing the oil to come out. Some of the produce decay before they get to the mill as a result of the poor state of the road. This reduces the quality and quantity of the oil.”
Succour for the people
Succour appears to be coming the way of the beleaguered farmers with the recent partnership between the Federal Government and an oil producing firm, Oligakybrands Productions Limited. Speaking about the partnership, the estate manager said: “It is the Oligakybrands Productions Limited that has come to give the people a ray of hope. The company is willing to build up some bridges, culverts, and also improve the standard of the mill we are having. They have come into agreements with the farmers who have accepted to sell their First Fruit Bunches (FFB) to them. They are commencing work soon and ready to produce 10 tons a day.
“The farmers are already happy that they will no longer struggle again. Oligaky will go to the farms and carry the fruits from the farmers. When they begin to buy the FFB, no farmer will complain of not having money to buy fertilisers.”
Explaining the company’s interest in the estate, the Chief Executive Officer, Kenneth Obeto, said: “We are interested in the oil palm estate because we are committed to alleviating the sufferings of the people. The situation we saw when we came was that the farmers need financial assistance to implement the Best Management Practices (BMP). They need modern working tools and inputs for high yield because without high yield, the farmer makes no reasonable income. We are also out to address the problem of accessibility to the farm, do something about the collapsed bridges, poor drainage etc. By so doing, we will ensure a bumper harvest and better palm oil mill facility. At the end of the day, the quality and quantity of palm oil that the farmers will produce will be tremendous.
“We carried out a feasibility study and saw the challenges the farmers go through working on the farm. A number of the farmers have been forced to abandon their farms because they are not getting returns on their investments. We would put the stress off the farmers by buying off the produce. They will no longer have to go through the burden of carrying their produce on their heads from the farms to the mills. By so doing, they will earn regular income and would have fears about their harvested kernels rotting in the farms or washed away by flood.”
He noted: “Our activities will get the farmers out of low income earnings and misery by buying their Fresh Fruits Bunch (FFB) which will reduce their labour and maximise profit for them without them going through the constraints of processing it. This will increase their living standards and help the government in the sector of rural development and employment sector and also improve national agricultural productions.
“The project is capital intensive. Well, from our feasibility study, we are looking at investing nothing less than N250 million into the project and are prepared to work with financial institutions and government agencies at all levels to bring the good plans we have for the people to realisation.”
Disturbed by the predicament of the farmers, an expert in the agriculture sector, Tunde Pratt, said it is not out of place for the farmers to be apathetic to their job because of the conditions they are working in. He attributed the failure of successive governments in the country to provide a solid structure to encourage farmers as the bane of the sector.
Using the Indonesian and Malaysian examples, he said: “Palm oil plantation in Indonesia accounts for some 13.5 million hectares of land, and this is set to increase with more permit applications being received by the government to convert forest estates to palm oil plantation. The increase of palm oil investment is driven by the increase in demand of world crude palm oil (CPO) production. Indonesia is ranked the top world exporter of palm oil, accounting for 44% of the world’s exported palm oil. In 2000, Indonesian CPO production reached 7 million tons; by 2014, this had increased to 33.5 million tons USD $18.9 billion in export income. CPO production is predicted to increase to 78 million tons in 2020, along with an expansion in plantations.
“In Sarawak area of Malaysia, the Land Consolidation and Rehabilitation Authority (SALCRA) helps the small holders a great deal. The farmers pick the fresh fruit bunches from his oil palm trees and sell them to the SALCRA mill which pays them a fair dividend. The organisation’s mission is to improve the quality of life for their stakeholders. Since oil palm trees need to be replanted every 25 years, SALCRA maintains a reserve fund to cover the smallholder’s replanting expenses. So they don’t have to borrow again.”
He added: “Today, palm oil benefits have extended beyond just the farmers. The entire community has reaped the benefits of palm oil. SALCRA has invested in Sarawak’s infrastructure. The association has built education centers, health care centers and roads. Lutek said the roads have made a difference in the community: “Whereas last time, it may take a day or so to go to the hospital, now it only takes a moment.
“Some small holders in Malaysia are realising the benefits of palm oil and converting their struggling rubber plantations to sustainable palm oil plantations. If we support our farmers in this manner, they will be happy and give their best. By so doing, the harvest will be better and prices will fall. Many people will as a result be attracted to faming and consequently, the rate of unemployment will drop.”
