Assessment of Palm Products Uses and Sustainable Practices in the Southern Nigeria

The study assessed the palm products uses and sustainable practices in selected States of Southern Nigeria. The study adopted the use of cross sectional research design and made use of 560 structured copies of questionnaire to elicit information from the oil palm farmers and producers using purposive and random sampling techniques. Descriptive statistics were used for analyzing the data. Findings showed that oil palm tree has various uses which are apparently and diverse in the study area among which included palm oil, palm kernel oil, brooms, palm wine, building, local baskets, mushroom growth and cooking materials. Results also showed that 53.8% of oil palm famers practiced monocropping while 46.2% engaged in intercropping. However, 3.6% intercropped oil palm with plantain; 38.5% with cassava/cocoyam; 2.3% with banana while 1.7% with vegetables. Findings showed majority (>70%) of sampled oil palm producers frequently carry out oil palm practices which included excessive use of fertilizers, burning of forested lands, extending of oil palm farm, use of empty fruit bunches.. Furthermore, results also indicated that that oil palm producers’ (95.2%) rarely treats their liquid waste from initial processing before its final release into the environment; and this practice is not conducive for the environment as this can pollute the environment. More than 75% of respondents agreed that lack of government intervention, high cost of labour, lack of storage capacity, shortage of land, technical and economic inefficiencies, poor road network link road, poor electrical supply inadequate credit facility, heavy use of manual processing techniques and inadequate research to improve oil palm business were the challenges being faced by the oil palm farmers. The study concluded that the practices employed for oil palm production among were not sustainable because of deforestation practices, and forest conversion practices lead to degradation of forests without adequate replacement strategies. The study recommended among others that government should create enlightenment programmes that are directed at educating oil palm farmers as regards conservation strategies that will promote sustainable practices in the face of meeting increasing demands.