The women producers local palm oil at Akyem Asuom in the Kwaebibirem Municipality of the Eastern region have called on government to support them to produce the oil in larger quantiities to boost Ghana’s economy.

They lamented that the stressful condition they go through before the final stage of production of the palm oil.

According to them, they are putting their health and that of the babies at risk as a result of what they go through at their production sites.

The women revealed that the heat emanating from the fires and the scorching sun during productions is unbearable.

They are therefore pleading with the government to assist them by providing them with equipment such as tents to provide shade and simple modern machines that can make their work easy and comfortable.

They further pleaded with the government to help in the marketing of their products as according them the price buyers give them after going through all the stress to produce the palm oil, is nothing to write home about.

The women made the passionate appeal when the President of Artisanal Palm oil Millers And Outgrowers Association, Ghana, Mr. Paul Amaning visited them

He assured the women that plans have been put in place and would soon be implemented by Nana Addo’s government.

Mr. Paul Kwabena Amaning expressed his desire to make a massive impact in the industry as plans are in place to identify the major problems confronting the industry basically on artisanal mills.

According to him, the environment, prices, and the value chain are at stake. He, however, indicated they have been able to develop a ten-year strategic plan to resolve such problems.

He said the association and German government have teamed up in training about 900 people in the various universities in the country to prove the system.

He said, with the plans put in place, the President is confident there will be massive changes in the association.

“As an association, we’ve been able to develop a ten-year strategic plan to solve all problems confronting the industry, especially artisanal mills and it will take time, we start from the nursery for which we did it almost four years ago. We raised nursery and share for people and we are now on the mill and we have identified basic issues that we need to solve,” he said.

He continued, “When you check the value chain, I think there are a lot of things we need to resolve. Pricing of oil palm or CPO cannot be determined as of today because we need to engage the stakeholders including (GOPDC), the bigger companies to come out with how the pricing will be determined”

“As an association, we keep on engaging tree crop development authority to come out with the pricing formula and I think soon, we will solve that problem. In oil palm, there is nothing like a waste but it is here that we haven’t identified the purpose of it. for example, the sludge can be used as fat for animals as food,” he said.

He added, “With our new system we have developed we will be able to dam it well and process it into fat for animals like chicken and pigs”

Mr. Amaning noted the government interest in Agribusiness and is of the government must be advised on how they can module the oil palm into the U-start program which he believes can help solve the high rate of unemployment in the country.