Dis Ting... Palm Oil

It has been mentioned that our posts have been pretty sight-seeing based, and less project-related.  I think this is mostly because it is much less complicated to talk about our traveling escapades rather than our project tasks; certainly it is not due to the fact that our projects have in any way been uninteresting.  So, I will attempt to do a post on one very small but very interesting (especially from an engineering perspective) component of my first project.  Since we were looking for ways in which the communities could use electricity productively, we spent a large amount of time investigating the small-scale enterprises in the area.  By far the most important enterprise was found to be palm oil processing, and the way in which it is done is fascinating, especially when you keep in mind that these communities do not have electricity.

Palm oil processing is an extremely important source of income for many people in the Eastern Region.  In each of the two villages we were in, over 100 people were employed in the industry.  With the exception of the screw press operators, the workers are predominantly women.

Palm fruit (or “abeh” in Twi) are walnut-sized, red berries that grow in large bunches on oil palm trees.  Inside the fruit is a smaller nut (called the kernel).  The trees themselves have tons of uses – the fronds make brooms, fans, and baskets; the branches are used as reinforcement in mud-brick homes; the leaves together are used for thatch in roofs; the fruit give palm and palm kernel oil; their waste products are good combustibles; and fallen trees are tapped for palm wine and gin.

Nearly everyone in the area has several acres of oil palm (along with many other crops, however, the oil palm tends to be the major “cash crop”).  To harvest the bunches of fruit, farmers use a sickle attached to a long, long stick.  You have to be really careful because the bunches are spiky and they fall from a great height – although the trees start out small, the older ones are really tall.  In fact, they eventually get too tall to be useful.

The bunches are taken to an oil processing facility (of which there were three in each community), where the fruit are removed from the branch using a sharp knife.  It takes 80-100 branches to make one ton (or one barrel) of palm oil.  Next, they are placed in a huge drum over a fire, where they are softened by boiling.  This step therefore requires a huge input of firewood. 

When the fruit are soft, they are fed to a mill, which grinds them to a pulp.  Generally these mills are run by diesel or petrol – which we all know is terribly expensive these days.  In some cases, the plants don’t even have a mill – the fruits are ground by hand.  Obviously, this is incredibly inefficient, reducing the production rate by magnitudes.

The pulp is then taken to the manual screw presses, which are typically operated by muscular young men.  When the pulp is squeezed, a orangish-red liquid comes out.  What is left behind is fibres and kernels.  They are separated and the fibres are used as fuel for the fires.  As none of the plants we saw had the technology to make palm kernel oil, the kernels were collected and sold to someone who took them elsewhere for processing.

The liquid now must be refined to obtain the oil.  It is placed in large, black cauldrons over the fire, and stirred constantly (think again about the huge demand for firewood in this step).  Eventually, the oil can be removed from the top of the cauldron – waste water (not particularly clean) accumulates at the bottom, which is poured off into the bush.

The larger plants can produce up to 15 or 20 barrels of palm oil in one day.  It is sold all over Ghana, including the major cities of Kumasi and Accra.  You can see it being sold in big jugs, as well as re-used “Voltic” water bottles.  Palm Oil is a red oil that is a key component to a many of the delicious Ghanaian dishes.  It is also good for you – it is high in beta-cerotene, Vitamin E antioxidants, and is cholesterol-free!

It was interesting to see these small-scale palm oil processing plants in contrast with the huge factory and plantation we drove through on the way there.  The picture you see above is the endless rows of palm at the massive plantation.  I will try to upload some more soon...

As a brief update, Josh and I will be heading North to Tamale tomorrow morning.  The 12 hour trip will take us to the area in which we will be helping our project officer to carry out a baseline survey for our second project.  We will cover three communities in three days.  It should be a tiring but worthwhile week; I look forward to returning to the north and seeing more of those communities.

We will return for two more weeks of report-writing in a more crowded office, as the other interns will have returned as well.  We will look forward to seeing Lindsey and Amy again!