The wonders of Palm oil

From the leaves used in roofing, and broom making, to its trunk for building, to its palm nuts for oil, and husk as a furnace accelerant, not forgetting the palmy from it, it is indeed a wonder tree. If successive governments in Nigeria had diversified from crude oil, and focused on cash crops, Nigeria today would be one of the richest countries in the world.

As a take away, in the 1960s and 70s, Nigeria was the largest producer of groundnuts, cowpea, yams, cocoa, rubber, and one of the largest producers of cotton and oil palm. Today, we are no where on the table. On a trip to Zurich a few years back, I did not see a single cocoa tree anywhere, of course it doesn't grow in Switzerland, but that country is one of the biggest producers of chocolate in the world, making arguable more than Nigeria makes from crude oil, not minding that half of our crude money is stashed in that country yielding interest for the Swiss.

However, Palm oil is not only meant for native rice, ofada stew, porridge beans etc.

Palm oil has gain root both in the local and international market and that's because of the increase in the demand of it in the past few years. Incase you don't know, palm oil is the most widely consumed vegetable oil on the planet earth. Majority of the packaged products you pick on the supermarket racks contains palm oil.

According to Zion Market Research; the global palm oil market was valued at USD65.73 billion in 2015, and as at 2012 was worth USD 92.84 billion.

Are you aware that the industries that uses oil palm as raw materials range from, personal care and cosmetics industry, pharmaceutical industry, animal feed industry, biofuel and energy industry, consumer retail food and snack manufacturing industry and food service industry. According to Chodchod management services, palm oil is used in making: Detergents, Pizza dough, Instant noodles, Lipstick, Ice cream, Margarine, Chocolate, Shampoo, Cookies, Biodiesel, Packaged bread, Soap