Nigeria Professor of Agricultural Extension and Rural Development, Prof. Lucia Omobolanle Ogunsunmi has disclosed that for palm oil is as important as crude oil, urging government at all levels to include palm oil in its lists of agriculture produce for development.

She made this statement in an interview with CEOAFRICA at a session of Agricultural Researchers discussing on the theme: “Soil mapping and Fertility evaluation for Formulation of Appropriate Oil Palm Fertilizer in Nigeria,” held at the Institute of Agricultural Research & Training (IAR&T), Moor Plantation, Ibadan on Friday 11th of December, 2020.

She stated that “Oil palm widely known for its oil is one of the most important perennial crops grown worldwide. It is a most significance crop in Nigeria occupying about 2.53 million hectares, and palm oil production of about IMT/year, report has shown.

Prof. Lucia said that Oil palm production in Nigeria is of vital value in the sense that the country  has been relying on crude oil before and that is failing, adding that considering the many uses of the palm oil and its by-products, it was necessary for governments to support palm oil farmers.

According to the erudite Professor, if Nigeria government can key into Palm oil production, it can sustain the economy. “There are many people that have keyed into it, even youths. By the time we go into it on a full scale, more employment opportunities are guaranteed, she said.

She further said that with a well-developed palm oil industry, Nigeria can export the products and earn huge foreign exchange, thereby reducing the crude oil shocks on the economy. One of the ways to achieving this is funding

“Investment in oil palm requires huge finance. Funding is one of the major challenges we face in the industry,” said Prof. Lucia.

Speaking further, she said lack of information on oil palm production is the major problem in the industry.

She, however urged Youths to venture into the production of oil palm for commercial purposes.I now calling on Youths to venture into oil palm farming. This is because it has huge economic potential.”

Meanwhile, she said the only way that the industry could attract Nigerians is for the government to implement attractive policies, such as encouraging environment that would make people to come into it.

On his part, Mr. Ayodele Adelana, a researcher of soil conservation and soil physics at IAR&T, said the essence of the fertility aspect of the training is to be able to get fertilizers specific for oil palm as against other fertilizer that is been used in other crops.

“During the course of the fieldwork for this project, we encounter farm where fertilizers that are meant for maize, we also have farmers that are applying them on their palm oil farms and this is wrong, he said.

He further maintained that the essence of the soil fertility as regards to palm is to come out with site specific and specialty fertilizer, “that means yield of farmers will increase as much as 50% from what they are getting presently.”

In his presentation, Dr. Vicent Aduramigba-Modupe, posited that a viable means of overcoming soil fertility constraint is fertilizer usage, noting that fertilizer are necessary farm inputs but  its use in Nigeria has been limited by availability and efficiency of accessible ones.

“This  led to poor response of crops and in some cases acidification and land degradation. In order to sustain yields, fertilizer application becomes inevitable,” he added.