Appraising the Changing Trends in Oil Palm Farming in Nigeria's Lower South Region

During the early 20th century when Nigeria was the largest producer of palm oil globally, the South Eastern region accounted for much of the output. Being the chief source of revenue responsible for the development of the zone at that time, the prosperity exuded therein from oil palm trade, spilled over to other parts of Nigeria in varying forms. Considering the large presence of palm trees and the associated plantations in the Southern region. The prominence of Nigeria in the sector was such that the exported items to destinations all over the world penetrated major markets where palm produce drew regular interests from buyers. Added to that, during the civil war in the late 1960s and the discovery of petroleum in the South East region, palm oil plantations were obliterated, and output waned as petroleum emerged as the major export of the nation. Yet, what seems forgotten is that palm oil was instrumental in the economic advancement of the nation, with market access and infrastructure essential to product delivery concentrated in riverine communities along the Delta. However, with the post war slide, no serious effort was made to revive the foundering sector amidst institutional neglect and misplacement of policy priorities. Even with the present scramble to revive it, the amenities for industrial revival and up to date studies on the state of the sector remain elusive. Compounding that, the Southern region still lacks complete georeferenced info on oil palm activities essential for planning under a mix-scale model. For that, this paper will fill that void by assessing the state of the palm oil sector in Southern Nigeria. Emphasis are on the issues, trends, impacts, factors and efforts using mix-scale tools of Geographic Information System (GIS) and descriptive statistics. The results not only reaffirmed the region’s position as the frontier of oil palm with changes in output and cultivated areas from 2006-2012, but Akwa Ibom and Imo state outpaced the other states. Also, from 1961-1965, the former Eastern region stood out in all statistical categories associated with production and usage beginning with 74.08% in output and 93.48 to 59.1% in purchases and residential consumption. The ecological impacts consist of 6.6% deforestation rates nationwide and the loss of forested land in Cross River state followed by continued forest land declines (10.26 -16.24%) in 2002-2006 and 47.58% in 2007 from palm oil production activities. Aside from land grabbing incidents by oil palm companies at the expense of local communities, there are greater risk exposures from the use of agrochemicals with threats to biodiversity. While the GIS mappings revealed the firm concentration in output and cultivated areas in the core producing states, the patterns also show gradual dispersal of oil palm indicators onto the other states. Given the linkages to socio-economic, and physical elements, to remedy the problems, the paper offered some suggestions ranging from improved farm policy towards the oil palm sector, community participation, and corporate social responsibility and the design of a regional oil palm information system to ameliorate the situation.