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Nigeria may see a rapid increase in palm oil production following a new memorandum of Understanding (MoU between the Nigerian Institute for Oil Palm Research (NIFOR) and Luscei Investment Limited.
The move is expected to scale up palm oil production, enabling the country to meet projected targets.
With the pact, Luscei Investment would host the Institute’s Extension Works Seed (EWS) fields while planting seedlings for a 40-hectare field would be supplied free of charge by NIFOR.
The private entity will manage the planting, maintenance and harvesting of the field under the supervision of NIFOR technical personnel, a statement made available after the MoU noted.
Executive Director of the institute, Dr Celestine Ikuenobe, decried the recent decline in the operation of NIFOR. He said the new partnerships were necessary to reinvent best practices of NIFOR’s core mission.
Represented by the Director, the Research, Technology and Product Development Department, Dr Isona Gold, Ikuenobe said NIFOR remained the number one palm oil research institute in Africa.
He said: “In the past, it was a taboo to be seen around plant breeding and agronomy fields but over time the scientific culture of the institute has been eroded, resulting in the disregard for science.
“In some cases, staff of the institute do not understand our experimental fields and see the fields as places for theft, with little knowledge of the institute’s cash flow potential and the negative impact of such activities on the relevance of NIFOR in the global scientific community. The consequence is that many years later, we do not have reliable yield records from our fields to market our products.
“This is where our competitors have an advantage, as they can control such occurrences in their locations. In addressing this challenge, the Institute is seeking collaboration with private organisations and adopting stricter measures to curb sabotage within its system, hence our partnership with Luscei.”
Director of Luscei Investment, Oluseyi Adeleke, said the agreement would last for 20 years and that the collaboration with NIFOR has improved the productivity of the farm.
“With our collaboration, we had better insight into our land acquisition, as we received expert guidance from NIFOR during the process. Whilst there are challenges, we have been able to overcome them due to the resilience in the quality of materials we receive and how they can survive harsh weather conditions. As a result of this, major oil producers came to check our produce and today they off-take from our farms.
“We are going to host their research outpost on our farm, which spans about 40 hectares and in the process, will learn from the researchers and replicate in the investment area of the farm. In the mid to long term, we hope to become more commercially viable, as we anticipate the next 20 years of this partnership.”
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