By Chukwuka Ugokwe :
Participants at a Five Day International Conference have called for enhanced collaborations to effect strategic government initiative to drive industrial utilisation of oil palm and coconut secondary raw materials, residues and by-products.
The conference which brought delegates from different countries, centred on the coconut value chain and climate change resilience was hosted by the Malaysia Ministry of Agriculture.
In a report made available by the Anambra State Commissioner for Agriculture, Dr Foster Ihejiofor, following their return from the 50th International Cocotech Conference, delegates recommended that coconut and oil palm exported be processed to maximize revenue from the value chain.
“Since many people are already into small scale palm oil processing, modular processing plants should be set up in every community producing and processing significant amounts of palm produce.
” The Smallholder processors should come together in a Cooperative form to manage one modular processing plant as this will ensure the quality of produce mainly for local consumption”
It stated that the mission was also for a first hand experience of the Malaysian agricultural programme and establish business collaborations as part of efforts to deepen the process of growing the state economies through promotion of technical services.
“Government is to perform key industry regulatory and critical control functions in development of infrastructure, research and development based tech powered seedlings production, distribution, value chain delineation for improved efficiency and effective monitoring, structured aggregation services for zero waste and seamless industries linkages”
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