Zowasel Opens New Crop Centers Across Nigeria’s Niger-Delta Region
Zowasel kicked off its field operations across key farming communities in the Niger-Delta states of Akwa-Ibom and Cross Rivers in Nigeria.
The agricultural technology startup has concluded the selection and identification of local partners called trustees and locations for its remote infrastructures called Crop Test Center, (CTC) that enables smallholder farmers to access the Zowasel technology right in their communities through trusted local partners.
The newly remote CTCs are strategically located across 16 key farming communities in ten local government areas of the States. The infrastructures would help provide smallholder farmers with guidelines on quality crop cultivation practices, increase productivity, access to financial inclusion services, and ultimately access to premium markets to support farmers across the Oil palm and Cocoa value chains in the region to earn more for their crops.
Zowasel had partnered with Solidaridad West Africa (SWA) in June 2021 to build a sustainable oil palm and cocoa value chain across the Niger-Delta region of the West Africa country to support and enable smallholder farmers to earn more for their crops.
Though the Niger-Delta region is better known for its huge crude oil deposits and exploration activities, Akwa-Ibom and Cross River states are two key oil palm-producing states in the region of the country.
Akwa Ibom State is the largest oil palm-producing state in Nigeria, along with Cross River. The south-south states have the biggest palm tree plantation in Nigeria with a large number of smallholder farmers as oil palm producers. Crops produced across the regions include Oil Palm fresh bunches, Processed palm oil, Cassava (mostly sold fresh or processed into gari), Cocoa, and others.
According to Statists, in 2020, the production of palm oil in Nigeria was estimated to be 1,015 thousand metric tons. Between 2010 and 2020, the palm oil crops in the country increased, registering the highest growth in 2010, when the production grew by 14 percent compared to the previous year. In the last three years, the production remained stable at over one million metric tons. Nigeria is one of the leading five producers of palm oil worldwide.
In 2020/2021, worldwide statistics of leading producers of palm oil, measured in thousand metric tons shows that with the timeframe, the Nigerian production volume of palm oil amounted to 1.28 million metric tons.
In the early 1960s, Nigeria was the world’s largest palm oil producer with a global market share of 43%. Today, it is the 5th largest producer with less than 2% of the total global market production of 74.08 million MT. In 1966, Malaysia and Indonesia surpassed Nigeria as the world’s largest palm oil producers. Since then, both countries combined produce approximately 80% of total global output, with Indonesia alone responsible for over half i.e. 53.3% of global output.
To meet the supply gap of palm oil, the country had to depend on importation over the years. However, the government had made palm oil, ineligible for forex through the Nigerian interbank market to encourage local production and manage foreign reserves. Also, a duty charge of 35% was applied on crude palm oil (CPO).
The opening up of Zowasel operations in the Niger-Delta farming communities’ comes with great excitement, joy, huge relief, and high expectations from the smallholder farmers.
To provide more insights about smallholder farmers’ and community expectations from Zowasel, we interviewed Mr. Udeme Bassey Edet, one of the lucky selected Zowasel trustees from Ikot Nkim community, Ibesikpo Asutan in Akwa Ibom state. Ikot Nkim community has an estimated population of 4000 people, with about 60% female and 40% male oil palm smallholder farmers.
The community produces oil palm, processing it into raw unadulterated palm oil. While the people are known for oil palm cultivation, they also produce other commodities such as maize, cassava (mostly sold fresh or processed into gari), pumpkin, okro, hot pepper, cucumber, and tomatoes.
Mr. Edet is an inspiration to many, strongly upholding his cultural heritage as an oil palm farmer, despite the challenges of low productivity, poor crop cultivation practices, and lack of access to the market to earn for their crops.
Below is our Q &A session with our newly selected trustee Mr. Udeme Bassey Edet.
Please tell us who you are and what you do?
Mr. Edet: I am an oil palm farmer with 25 years of experience in the oil palm value chain.
What is your agricultural background?
Mr. Edet: I am a trained field agronomist by Solidaridad West Africa, Community Facilitator for Solidaridad, and team lead farmer for Partnership Initiative for Niger Delta (PIND Foundation).
What do you love about agriculture?
Mr. Edet: Agriculture is what makes a living. I love and have a passion for agriculture through my parents. Agriculture as a business has helped me to acquire knowledge on Best Agronomic Practices for sustainability.
We are thrilled to know, as a valuable oil palm farmer in your region, what do you do outside of work?
Mr. Edet: I engage farmers through capacity building training, I source inputs like fertilizer, seedlings, and market linkage in my own local way.
What do you look forward to as a Zowasel Trustee?
Mr. Edet: I look forward to working as a Zowasel trustee to support and meets the needs of my fellow smallholder farmers across our communities. Our farmers are already expecting to start seeing hybrid seeds, improved fertilizers, and financial services through the Zowasel crop center situated here in our community.
Also commenting on the importance and impact of the Zowasel crop test centers, Mr. Egong Owai Ejuno, a Solidaridad West Africa (SWA) Field Agronomist, said: “the Crop Test Centers would provide smallholder farmers across the southern region of the country capacity building through opportunities, free training on Good Agricultural Practices (GAP), empowering them with adequate knowledge on how to improve crop cultivation to increase crop quality and boost productivity to earn more for their crops”.
Zowasel Crop Test Centers are agricultural remote infrastructures strategically located across key farming communities through field partnerships to enable smallholder farmers to gain access to improved farming inputs and financial inclusion services.
The remote infrastructure provides smallholder farmers with access to free training on crop quality cultivation practices to improve crop quality, boost productivity level as well as access to premium markets.
As a sustainable marketplace for crops, Zowasel has secured premium oil palm, palm oil, and cocoa processors to provide direct linkage with the smallholder farmers across their communities through the Crop Test Centers.
Expanding to the Niger-Delta region of Nigeria is part of Zowasel’s efforts in developing sustainable nature-positive value chains across Africa.
