Economics Of Oil Palm Seedling Production

CHAPTER ONE   
INTRODUCTION   
1.1   BACKGROUND OF THE STUDY
The African Oil Palm, Elaeis guineensi jacq (Jacquin, 1963), is placed in the Arecaceae family which contains about 225 genera with over 2600 species along with coconut and date palms cultivars.  There are 3 naturally occurring forms of the oil palm fruit, termed dura, tenera and pisifera.  The selection of dura female and pisifera male parents is carried out to obtain tenera offspring that produce large oil yield (Breure et al, 1986, Breure, 2003). The African oil palm is native to tropical Africa, from Sierra Leone in the West through the Democratic Republic of Congo in the East, it was domesticated in its native range, probably in Nigeria, and moved throughout tropical Africa by humans who practiced shifting agriculture at least 5,000 years ago (Hartley, 1988).  European explorers discovered the palm in the late 1400’s, and distributed it throughout the world during the slave trade period (Corner, 1966).  In the early 1800’s, the slave trade ended but British began trading with West Africans in Ivory, lumber and palm oil. The oil palm was introduced to the Americans hundred years ago, where it became naturalized and associated with slave plantations, but did not become an industry of its own until the 1960s (Lereka, 1998).  The first plantations were established on Sumatra in 1911, and in 1917 in Malaysia (Raymond, 1961).  
Oil plantations were established in tropical America and West Africa about this time, and in 2003, palm oil production equaled that of soybean, which had been the number one oil crop for many years. Elaeis guineeasis is characterized by its vertical trunk and feathery nature of its leaves every year 20 – 25 new leaves called “frond” develop in continuous whorle at the apex of the trunk (Devendra, 1984).  The fruit bunches develop between the trunk and the base on the new fronds and the plant can reach 60 – 80ft in height in nature, but is rarely more than 20 or 30ft in cultivation.  Although new plantation starts to bear fruit at 3 years, generally, the first commercial crop require between five and six years and continuous to produce for 25 – 30 years, or until the palm grow too high to be harvested.  Once a plantation reaches full production, a new inflorescence is produced every 15 days.  It weights between 15 and 20kg and can conking up to 1500 individual palm fruit of between 8 and 10 grams each (Chavaliar, 1937).  The individual fruits consist of the following four parts, a pericarp, a thin outer skin which upon ripening changes from brown to red or orange, a mesocarp, a large of fibrous material which surrounds the nut, an endocarp or hard inner shell (nut) to protect the seed or kernel and the seed (kernel) (Aighologa, 1995).