**Abstract**

Oil palm, a lucrative vegetable oil crop in the world, showed promising adaptability to some agroecologies in Uganda from studies carried out in the 1970s resulting in first commercial establishment in 2005 in Bugala Island, Kalangala district. Further, adaptability studies continue to reveal suitable areas for commercial oil palm production in the country. The infant industry faces an array of challenges, both biotic and abiotic especially in regard to smallholder farmer field management and build-up of pests and disease in the face of climate change both in the nuclear estate and smallholder farmers' fields. The rapid build-up of devastating diseases such as *Fusarium wilt* of oil palm and Ganoderma trunk rot in Uganda is an interesting scenario since they are often expected from second-phase plantings in other areas in the world. However, it may be attributed to the all-year-round weather suitability to pests and disease build-up on native or alternative hosts in most agroecologies in Uganda. This difference from other oil palm producing regions in the world has resulted in recently initiated oil palm Research in Uganda to focus on developing local solutions to challenges facing oil palm farmers in the country.

**Keywords:** oil palm, Uganda, history, opportunities, challenges, prospects

### **1. Introduction**

The Oil palm (*Elaeis guineensis* Jacq), most suited to areas between 10°N and 10°S of the equator, is a monocotyledonous perennial tree belonging to the family Palmae, Subfamily *Cocoideae*, and genus *Elaeis* [1]. The genus has two main species containing 32 chromosomes; *E. guineensis* the West African oil palm which is the commercial type and *Elaeis oleifera* the South American oil palm used mainly for breeding purposes because it contains more liquid oil and has high resistance to diseases [2–4]. Oil palm originates from West Africa, in the Niger delta, particularly in the belt between Guinea and North Angola in West and Central Africa [5]. It spread widely in the Palm belt of Africa through Sierra Leone, Liberia, the Ivory Coast, Ghana, Togo, Benin, Nigeria, Cameroon, and the Democratic Republic of Congo (formerly Zaire). Through large-scale commercial and small-scale household plantings, oil palm has now been introduced to countries like Burundi, Equatorial Guinea, Ethiopia, Gabon, Gambia, Liberia, Madagascar, Mozambique, Sao tome and Principe, Tanzania, and

Uganda where environment and climatic conditions are suitable. Globally, oil palm production has spread to South-East Asia, particularly Malaysia and Indonesia, which are now the world's leading producers of palm oil and palm kernel oil [6].

Oil palm is the leading source of vegetable oil in the world compared to other oil seeds with an annual production of over 50 million tons accounting for 39% of global annual vegetable oil production [7, 8]. Asia is the highest producer with 86.8% followed by Africa with 6.5%, Americas with 5.5%, and Oceania with 1.2% [7, 9]. In Africa, oil palm is/has been identified to be grown in over 25 countries and is mainly supported by corporate investors [10]. The area under oil palm varies from naturally existing stands in traditional plantations to large commercial plantations in most parts of Africa. Nigeria has the highest area under natural oil palm stands/traditional plantations with 2,500,000 hectares followed by the Democratic Republic of Congo with 1,000,000, Guinea with 2,000,000 hectares, and Togo with 600,000 hectares [3, 10]. In Uganda, one of the countries without traditional oil palm stands, commercial oil palm cultivation was introduced in 1998 through a Vegetable Oil Development Project spearheaded by the government in an innovative public-private-producer-partnership (4P) involving an integrated processor/nucleus estate/smallholder model in the district of Kalangala [9, 11]. Currently, oil palm production in Kalangala exceeds 11,000 hectares and the production has been expanded to the districts of Buvuma and Mayuge. Adaptability studies have revealed that production is suitable in Masaka, Kibaale, Bugiri, and Kagadi [11, 12]. In Kalangala, over 6500 hectares belong to the private sector partner, Oil Palm Uganda Limited (OPUL) while over 5000 hectares belong to medium and small-scale farmers. With oil palm offering four times higher yields of oil per hectare compared to other oil crops, yields of 6–12 tons/ha realized in Kalangala have helped reduce the oil deficit in the country. Furthermore, it has helped to reduce the high poverty rates that existed before the introduction of commercial oil palm production in the then fishing district [13]. Currently, over 5000 people in Kalangala receive regular and reliable monthly payments from fresh fruit bunch sales resulting in reduced fishing activity on Lake Victoria and effectively reduced Uganda's dependency on oil imports [13]. However, average yields of 8 tons/ha are relatively low especially in smallholder farmer fields due to poor agronomic practices, biotic and abiotic stresses directly affecting production. These challenges have been majorly unabated by the low knowledge base on the novel crop and the use of oil palm varieties from Asia, which are poorly adapted to local conditions in the first round of plantings in Kalangala. For example, globally, *Fusarium wilt* of oil palm and Ganoderma trunk rot are expected to appear from second set plantings where they have been reported [14] as opposed to the outbreak of the two diseases in less than 12 years of the first plantings in Uganda [15].

The major challenges threatening production of oil palm range from outbreaks of Blast in the nurseries, Oil Palm Weevil (*Rhynchophorus ferrugineus* Olivier), Fusarium wilt of oil palm and Ganoderma trunk rot, uneven ripening among others in the main fields.

Despite these challenges, the government through its National Oil Palm Project, NOPP has supported the oil palm industry through expansion to newly suitable areas and research for the identification of locally applicable technologies. This has ensured steady growth of the oil palm industry in Uganda over the past 2 decades.

### **2. Importance of oil palm in diets and income**

Oil palm is an economically and nutritionally important crop in all countries where it is cultivated and/or its products imported. It is the most consumed vegetable

#### *Challenges and Opportunities of Oil Palm Production in Uganda DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.108008*

oil in many countries in Asia, Africa, Central, and South America accounting for 39% of the total global output of oilseeds, overtaking soybean oil as the leading vegetable oil [16, 17]. Oil Palm is grown for its fruits from which the major products are derived including palm and kernel oil, and palm-kernel cake as the by-product [18]. Economically, palm oil products serve as a source of foreign exchange and as a raw material for industrial use. These oils are processed into a wide range of products for industrial and home or food uses where, refined, bleached, and deodorized (RBD) olein is used mainly for making cooking and frying oils, while RBD palm oil (unfractionated palm oil) is used for producing margarine, shortening, vegetable ghee, frying fats, and in the production of ice cream where milk fats are replaced by a combination of palm oil and palm kernel oil. Other than food uses, palm and kernel oils are used in industries to make soap, detergents, and cosmetics; in the chemical industry for plasticizers and coatings. The crude palm oil and its by-products including palm kernel cake, fruit chaff, mesocarp fiber, palm kernel shells, empty fruit bunches are burnt to provide electric energy and fuel (for biodiesel production). On the other hand, empty fruit bunches and palm oil mill effluents are used as farm plant nutrients and as feeds for livestock [18].

In Uganda, Oil palm is mainly grown for industrial use, domestically, it has reduced the country's dependency on imported oils and has provided a readily available source of vegetable oil for improving health standards and food intake. Financially, the production of palm oil has also improved the social standards of smallholder farmers and big population of people working in oil palm plantations for the nucleus estate. The others are employed by those with private oil palm farms and many others along the value chain get monthly remunerations from sale of ripe bunches [13]. Investments in oil palm production have led to improved infrastructure and service delivery in production and surrounding areas which have directly stimulated local economies and opened many areas to tourism around Lake Victoria. Nutritionally, palm oil is the richest source of dietary pro-vitamin A, vitamin E (30% tocopherols, 70% tocotrienols), vitamin K, carotenoids, and dietary magnesium.

Several studies have documented the special characteristics of palm oil. A comparative study with soya bean oil, peanut oil, and lard/fat reported that palm oil had an effect of reducing total blood cholesterol and "bad" low-density lipoprotein (HDL)-cholesterol and increases the amount of "good" high-density lipoproteincholesterol. Soya bean oil and peanut oil had no effect on the blood cholesterol but lard/fat increased the cholesterol levels [19, 20]. Other separate studies have also showed the benefits associated with consumption of palm oil in increasing "good" HDL-cholesterol in humans [21, 22]. According to USDA, a tablespoonful of palm oil contains 114 g of Calories, 14 g fat, 7 g saturated fat, 5 g monosaturated fat, 1.5 g polyunsaturated fat, and 11% Vitamin E. The wide range of natural palm oil fractions, have important nutritional and health properties, including antioxidant activities, cholesterol lowering, anti-cancer effects, and protection against atherosclerosis attributed largely to its tocotrienol content. Pro-vitamin E is vital for good vision, a healthy immune system, and cell growth, The major component of its glycerides is the saturated fatty acid palmitic; It has a balanced fatty acid composition of saturated and unsaturated fatty acids where the amount of the unhealthy trans-fatty acids is low in palm oil and it does not require partial hydrogenation ("hardening") to obtain solid fat unlike in some other oils and fats. Palm oil is the only oil with such good culinary characteristics that is cheap and readily available in sufficient amounts. Palm oil is the best alternative oil to use in order to avoid the trans-fatty acids in human diets [16].

As the World Health Organization (WHO) moves to ban trans-fats from peoples' diets, oil palm is gaining increased popularity and demand as a preferred safer oil.
