Oluchi Chibuzor
Akuland Group Limited, owner of Akuland Farms has revealed that efforts were in top gear to address Crude Palm Oil (CPO) deficit in Nigeria and the West Africa region through its recently acquired 100 hectares palm plantation.
The Executive Director, Akuland Group Limited, Hajia Salamatu Salisu, made this known while addressing journalists at a media briefing to announce the recent acquisition of a 100 hectares palm plantation farm through a long term lease that will enable it meet up with the market demand of CPO product in the African region.
According to Salisu, it was disheartening how Malaysia and Indonesia and other countries became world power on CPO supply, after picking the seedlings from Nigeria many decades ago, while the oil palm industry languishes as a result of lack of attention given to the Agricultural industry.
She maintained that Nigeria ought to be self-sufficient in palm oil produce and export the same to other countries for foreign revenue, stressing that negligence on the sector has cost the country huge sums.
“Akuland Farms made a great move on the 1st of January 2021. We have acquired through a long term lease, a 100 Hectares palm plantation farm to enable us meet demand of our client base red oil customers in Nigeria and West Africa business region.
“We are going to be planting high yielding varieties and we will also deploy the use of state- of -the -art processing CPO machines among many others that are retarding the sector currently. It’s our aim to fix this particular challenge for our country and Africa at Large.
“You know the numerous challenges confronting the crude palm oil production sector of the country is what has resulted in a huge production deficit of about 500,000 metric tonnes if not more.
“This is why we are here to rise up from where we failed as our contemporaries in the pre-colonial era (Malaysia and Indonesia) have maximized production and developed their value chain, making them the largest suppliers of crude palm oil,” she explained.
She added that it was the firm’s resolve to complement the federal government’s effort on its self-sufficiency policy in rice production through the indigenous ‘Mama Naija Premium Parboiled Rice,’ saying the group was doing same with the palm oil industry so as to produce for our local consumption and export as well.
