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A short history of palm oil
The oil palm is one of the main source of vegetable oil in Africa. Two types of oil are produced from the oil palm tree: the palm oil (mesocarp oil) and the kernel oil (the seed oil).
The origin of the oil palm is in dispute. Cook (1942) suggested an American origin of the oil palm because it grows spontaneously and freely in the coastal areas of Brazil but Rees(1965) provided fossil, historical and linguistic evidence to confirm it's African origin. Still most authorities accept the tropical rain forest region of West African as the centre of origin of the oil palm.
The oil palm belongs in the warm, high rainfall, tropical forest areas. It grows best where rainfall is not less than 1500mm, evenly distributed throughout the year. Ideal temperatures are 27°C to 35°C. Oil palm is a lowland crop although it can grow well up to an altitude of 900m. It requires plenty sunshine. The main oil palm belt of West Africa runs through the southern latitudes of Sierra Leone, Liberia, Ivory Coast, Ghana, Togo, Benin, Nigeria, Cameroon and into Zaire and Angola.
The oil palm, also known as Elaeis guineensis, grows to a height of 9 meters or more, with a stout stem. The stem may be 30 to 38cm in diameter. The palm leaf known as palm frond with a prominent length of 0.9 to 1.5m long. A palm may bear up to 12 bunches of fruit per year. A bunch yield of 68 kg per palm and year is regarded as the standard. The trees life span could reach 15 years. It needs five years to mature and only from the 6th year does it begins to yield. A palm bunch is ready to be harvested when it has just a few loose fruits.
To extract palm oil, the mature bunches are harvested and boiled in a pot or drum to disinfect and soften the fruit. Then the fruits are removed from their bunches. These are again reboiled for about 30 to 45 minutes. The next step is to pound the fruits while they are still hot and soft to separate the mesocarp from the kernel. After this separation, the mesocarp is pounded until no streak of coloured outer skin is seen any more. The pounded mass is then loaded into a press for the extraction the oil. Water may be added to facilitate oil extraction. The extracted oil is clarified by boiling and skimming. The refined oil is then stored in drums, tins or bottles ready for sale. After separation from the mesocarp, the kernel are washed, dried in the sun, cracked by hand and packed for sale. Seeds intended for planting should not be boiled. They are extracted from the bunch and kept in a cool place till the mesocarp softens on it's own, then the kernels are washed clean in cold water, air dried and stored or germinated. Palmöl.
The by-product of the oil palm includes palm wine - delicious wine obtained by tapping the base of the immature inflorescence of the oil palm. It is usually undiluted and has high yeast content. The palm frond is used for building, especially as roofing material and fencing, the midrib of the leaflet is used for brooms and toothpicks. The frond when dry is an excellent fuel (firewood). Pre-colonial West Africa was covered with a dense network of markets and trade routes. In the coastal regions people traded a lot of food stuffs like fish, yams, pepper, plantain, eggs, fowls, palm oil, palm wine and palm kernel.
The palm oil and palm kernel trade like other trades was said to have co-existed with the slave trade but with the boom in slave trade, the production of palm oil decreased. When in 1807 the British parliament passed an act prohibiting the trading in slaves, many states in West Africa who had grown to depend on slave trade were faced with economic difficulty. The suppression of slave trade, brought about a new economic order based on trade in the products of West African forests. The most successful of the new products was palm oil which had flourished on it's own until the boom. In Southern Nigeria and other areas around the coastal region of West Africa it was grown in big plantations since the mid 19th and became a new source to earn foreign exchange.
By 1840 palm oil had already succeeded the slave trade as the coasts leading export product because of it's increasing demand in Europe as one of the myriad inputs of industrialising societies. It was used as fuel and lubricant for the factories, for lighting as candle was produced from it, soap manufacturing (Palmolive) and in tin plate processing. Palm kernels were used in manufacturing margarine and the residue for cattle food. The industrial revolution in Europe brought a boom in the production and exportation of palm oil so that in 1855-6 Delta exported 25,060 tons which was over half the total quantity of oil exported from Africa to Europe. Prices were determined by an overseas market over which the producer had no control. The factors that cause them to rise of fall, were usually unrelated to African condition. A Gold Coast trader in palm oil in 1847 rapidly glanced over his dispatches, and suddenly shouted: "Hurray for my oil! There's a murrain among the cattle in Russia; My oil must go up". And so it did. The oil trade was monopolised by the middlemen, who prevented any contact between the producers and the white merchants. In the end of 1861, the boom in palm oil trade came to an end and finally declined end of the century. Palm oil and palm kernel exportation continued though no longer in increased demand. A different kind of oil (the petroleum product) is now used as fuel and lubricant for the industries. In the West African coastal regions palm oil continued to use palm oil in cooking. It is the backbone of all succulent dishes of the region. It not only has great taste, recent research has proven, that it is among the oils with the best nutritional properties.
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