Cover_Rebuilding West Africas Food Potential

Chapter 11. Oil palm industry growth in Africa: a value chain and smallholders’ study for Ghana 355

Table 2 shows an estimated sub-regional gap of 495 000 MT of oil palm between consumption and
production^4 for 2007 (TOR oil palm, 2011). These countries imported about 873 000 MT of palm oil and
exported 428 000 MT in the same period. The only country that produced more than it consumed was
Côte d’Ivoire in 2007.

In 2008, the countries in the sub-region spent over USD 818 million to import 841 000 tonnes of palm
oil (Table 3). Nigeria alone spent as much as USD 539 million to import palm oil in 2008. Table 4 shows
that Nigeria’s imports of palm oil in 2011 were not significantly different from 2008. All these oil palm
producing countries in the sub-region exhibit shortfalls in meeting demand from domestic production,
with Nigeria imports alone exceeding the exports of Ghana and Côte d’Ivoire.

Nigeria provides a huge domestic market for PKO. There is therefore a growing demand for CPO, not only in
Ghana but in the entire sub-region. In West Africa alone, there is an intra-region market close to 2 million MT a
year. For instance, it is reported that Malaysia has installed CPO silos in Ghana to export to the Nigerian market.
The Food and Agriculture Organization indicates that in the medium term (2005-2015) world vegetable oil
demand will rise to 30 percent of the vegetable oil market. A major part of this world demand will be for palm
oil. Ghana thus has the opportunity to explore this versatile sector by further developing its oil palm industry to
meet the growing market interest in oil palm products and derivatives, both domestically and internationally.

(^4) The target countries (Terms of Reference) are: Benin, Cameroun, Côte d’Ivoire, Guinea, Liberia, Nigeria, Sierra Leone
and Togo, but Ghana is included in this figure to have complete data.

Table 3. The Importation of Palm Oil in the Sub-region (2008)

Targeted countries Quantity (1000 tonnes) Value (million USD) Unit value ($/tonne)

Benin 225 202 900

Nigeria 464 539 1160

Côte d’Ivoire 0 0 0

Cameroon 43 25 579

Liberia 14 12 911

Sierra Leone 9 11 1258

Guinea 22 9 405

Togo 64 20 321

TOTAL 841 818

Source : FAOSTAT, 2011

Table 4. Palm Oil and PKO Demand in 2011: Ghana, Nigeria and Côte d’Ivoire (1000 MT)

Ghana Nigeria

Total

Supply

Exports Imports Food Use

Domestic

consumption

Industrial

Domestic

consumption

Total

Supply

Exports Imports Food Use

Domestic

consumption

Industrial

Domestic

consumption

2011

Palm Oil 304 100 150 180 174* 1388 18 440 1050 235

Palm

kernel oil^18102803104021586

Source: Index Mundi (www.indexmundi.com/agriculture: accessed June 2012)

Notes: * Estimated from data on total supply, exports, imports and food.