By Ishaya Ibrahim
With a desire for increased oil palm production in Nigeria, four palm oil-producing states in the country strengthens their commitment to the National Initiatives for Sustainable and Climate-Smart Oil Palm Smallholders (NISCOPS) project in Nigeria.
that was after a two-day inter-state level stakeholders’ forum organized by Solidaridad West Africa (SWA), Nigeria.
Participants from the states of Akwa Ibom, Cross River, Enugu, and Kogi, the four states where Solidaridad is implementing the NISCOPS project with the support from the Kingdom of the Netherlands, further express their commitment for the laudable project.
The forum held in Calabar, from October 17 -18, 2019 with the theme: Building Inter-Sectoral Synergy for Oil Palm Sector Sustainability in Nigeria, was designed to create synergy between different stakeholders in the oil palm sector towards sustainable and climate-smart oil palm production in Nigeria through the NISCOPS project.
According to Kene Onukwube, Programme Manager, Oil Palm, SWA, Nigeria, it is a welcome development for the four states to show interest in NISCOPS as the programme is designed to ensure increased productivity of palm oil in an environmentally friendly way and also improve the livelihood of smallholder oil palm farmers.
“The interest in NISCOPS from the four states is a good indication as the project is designed to transform oil palm production in the country with much concern to the environment during cultivation and processing,” he said.
He stated that the objectives of NISCOPS are: the attainment of self-sufficiency in palm oil productivity, reduction in greenhouse gas, GHG emission at the mill level, and improvement in income and livelihood of smallholder oil palm farmers.
“The NISCOPS project is meant to transform the oil palm landscape and the sector sustainably and contribute to goal of Paris Agreement through the Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) and Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) in the four countries of Ghana, Nigeria, Indonesia and Malaysia where the project is being implemented” Dr. Samson Samuel Ogallah who is the Solidaridad NISCOPS Technical Project Coordinator and Senior Climate Specialist for Africa, added.
To Dr. Okoli Rowland, a lecturer and research consultant at Godfrey Okoye University, Enugu, and one of the resource persons at the forum, NISCOPS project by Solidaridad has come at the right time when global demand for the commodity is on the increase due to multiplicity of use. He said that the global oil palm market is currently worth 62 billion USD annually, this underscores the economic significance of palm oil and multiple uses of the commodity.
“The multiple-use and economic significance of palm oil both in the home and industries explains the growth in its global market size. Palm oil production has the capacity of engendering pro-poor development by lifting millions of rural poor out of poverty and contribute to the attainment of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), as evidence of that abound in Malaysia and Indonesia,” he stated.
Having considered Nigeria as one of the major producers of palm oil in the West Africa sub-region. Solidaridad is presently executing its NISCOPS initiative in the states of Akwa-Ibom, Enugu, Cross River, and Kogi which are among the largest producers of oil palm in the country.
These states have the largest concentrations of independent smallholders, accounting for 89 per cent of the palm oil production in Nigeria, and therefore provide a viable avenue to trigger smallholders’ embrace of sustainable climate-smart agricultural practices as the norm in oil palm production among the smallholders.
Using NI-SCOPS resources, corporate and public match funding, Solidaridad aims to support smallholder oil palm farmers and to promote access to finance, agro-inputs, climate-smart technologies and markets, to increase productivity sustainably, build resilience to climate change and to reduce GHG emissions in Nigeria.
Participants in the forum were drawn from the four states of Akwa-Ibom, Cross River, Enugu, and Kogi where Solidaridad is currently executing its Kingdom of the Netherlands funded NISCOPS project. Among the stakeholders from the four states are farmers, Ministry of Agriculture, Ministry of Environment, Ministry of Commerce and Industry, Oil Palm Growers Association of Nigeria, OPGAN, private investors in oil palm sector, Niger Delta Development Commission, NDDC, and the state office of the Nigeria Incentive-Based Risk-Sharing System for Agricultural Lending, NIRSAL.
NISCOPS project is a nationwide initiative implemented in Nigeria by Solidaridad (in Akwa Ibom, Cross River, Enugu and Kogi States) and IDH (in Edo and Ondo state).