Edo to invest in oil palm production- Obaseki

BENIN CITY-GOVERNOR Godwin Obaseki of Edo state says the state government will invest heavily into the growth of palm oil, saying that the over concentration on crude oil was the root of the nation’s economic woes.

The governor who stated this when the 14-member committee set up to develop the oil palm sector presented their report, said the state would be one of the largest exporters of oil palm products if the potentials in that area is properly harnessed.

He said: “Oil Palm is our new crude oil; it will be the key driver of our development. The state still has one of the largest estates of oil palm, which have the highest yield in the country. We want to leverage on our high-yielding varieties and long tradition of oil palm production to acquire about 100, 000 hectares of land for the development of oil palm estates. The production will be of global standards and yield”.

‘’We will, within the next two weeks, create a smaller team to come up with a work plan on how to execute the feasibility plan, work out the image capturing of the land to be used, and get the involvement of the host community for the project”.

Speaking earlier, the committee Chairman, Mr Toni Ogunbor, said the committee painstakingly did a research in that sector and at the end recommended four key issues in the report that need to be addressed to bring the project to fruition.


According to him, “ land development, provision of security, infrastructure and the need to have data on soil and weather conditions were part of the issues to be addressed in that are so that the state would enjoy bountiful harvest in palm oil production”.

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