Every two weeks in Nigeria, trucks carrying about ₦700M worth of palm oil from different traders head to the northern states. Buyers from Niger, Chad, Cameroon, and Mali collect them and move them across borders for resale. Two weeks later, the kegs return empty, ready for the next round. That’s how high the demand is.
Globally, crude palm oil is even stronger in value.
But here’s the sad part: Nigeria, once the world’s leader in palm oil, now depends on imports. Ironically, the biggest palm oil processors in Nigeria are also among the top importers.
Nigeria imports over $235M worth of palm oil from Malaysia, $92.7M from India, and $68.2M from Indonesia. Meanwhile, 3.1 million hectares of palm trees in Nigeria lie wasted — land worth over ₦11 trillion ($9.5B). Indonesia, with 15.9 million hectares, earned $22.9B from exports in 2023 alone, plus another $16B from local use.
Nigeria loses over ₦11 trillion ($9B) every year by abandoning oil palm. That’s more than the country’s agricultural budget for the past ten years combined. If palm oil were treated as seriously as crude oil, those dead lands would be alive with plantations and processing hubs.
We once controlled 60% of the world’s palm oil. Today, we have lost it — without resistance.
And it’s not only palm oil.
Groundnuts from Kano — now India leads.
Cocoa from Ghana — Europe profits.
Cotton from Kaduna — Asia turns it into clothes.
Shea butter, once pressed by African women, is now packaged abroad and sold back to us at ten times the price.
The story repeats itself across Africa: we abandon, others industrialize. We sell raw materials, and they build industries. Billions slip away from African hands every year.
Governments still lack the will to create the right environment for farming, processing, and supply chains. They would rather spend $1B looking for crude oil than invest in palm oil, cocoa, cotton, or shea — crops that can feed generations.
The truth is simple: palm oil, cocoa, cotton, groundnut, shea — some of the most profitable crops today — are left to rot.
This is a call to Africans at home and abroad:
Don’t wait for government or grants.
Work with your families, partners, and networks.
Reclaim abandoned land. Replant. Build estates, mills, and packaging plants.
Crude oil will run out. Palm oil renews. Cocoa bears fruit. Shea keeps giving. Cotton keeps growing.
If we do nothing, history will remember us as the generation that imported what our ancestors once gave the world.
Credit:
“This powerful piece was originally written by John Dale. Sharing here because it speaks volumes about Africa’s untapped wealth and lost opportunities.”
Agro Trade & Export Opportunities in Africa by John Dale on Selar
