**1.1 Background information**

Palm oil is largely produced in Asia, Africa, and Latin America. However, the origin is traced to the tropical rain forest and equatorial region of Africa. Whereas oil palm is traced to Africa, 2019 data suggests that palm oil production as a

#### **Figure 1.**

*Proportion of palm oil production in Africa, 2019. Data from FAOSTAT [1].*

percentage of the global output was only about 3% for West Africa and 4% for Africa [1]. The major palm oil production countries in Africa are Nigeria (43%), Cote d'lvoire (17%), Ghana (13%) and Cameroon (11%). **Figure 1** shows the proportion of Africa's 2019 palm oil production by country. This does not include countries with less than 2% output.

Palm oil is the most important edible oil in Ghana and in the West Africa region. Palm oil and palm kernel represented 2% of total agricultural production value of Ghana in 2010 [2]. The processing of oil palm is a major source of income and employment to many women in the rural areas of the forest agroecological zone [3]. By 2015, the palm oil production sector was employing over 2 million people mostly in rural areas [4]. Crude palm oil, particularly those produced by the small-scale industry of Ghana, is used as vegetable oil in many local cuisines. Data from the 2008 Ghana Demographic and Health Survey shows that one out of every two households (54%) in the country and four out of five (80%) households in the Central Region used palm oil in food preparation [5]. From analysis of palm oil production and consumption in Ghana between the year 2005 and 2010, Angelucci [2] reported that the country produced a total of 120,000 tonnes of palm oil. As at 2021, the country's crude palm oil production had increased to 375,000 tonnes [6], doubling the production in a decade. The trend of palm oil production in Ghana from 2000 to 2021 is presented in **Figure 2**. However, Ghana has an annual production deficit of about 30,000 tonnes which is estimated to reach 127,000 tonnes by 2024 [7].

Suitable conditions for oil palm cultivation exist in the wetter southern part [8] in the rainforest and semi-deciduous forest zones. Based on the agro-ecological zones, palm oil has a wide national geographical coverage as it is cultivated in nine (9) out of the sixteen (16) first level administrative regions of Ghana. The most suitable areas for oil palm cultivation are said to be the Ahafo, Ashanti, Bono, Bono East, Central, Eastern, Oti, Western, and Western North Regions [8].

*Small-Scale Palm Oil Production in Ghana: Practices, Environmental Problems and Potential… DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.106174*

**Figure 2.**

*Annual crude palm oil production of Ghana, 2000-2021. Data from IndexMundi [6]*

#### **1.2 Overview of imports and exports of palm oil in Ghana**

Ghana is a net importer of crude palm oil even though the country exports crude palm oil to other neighboring West African countries such as Senegal, Benin, Burkina Faso, Nigeria, and Niger [9]. There has been a steady increase in exports and imports of crude palm oil, but the trend is not consistent. **Figure 3** shows the trend of trade value of palm oil imports and exports for Ghana from 2005 to 2019.

Imports of crude palm oil reached 119,821 MT with a trade value of US\$ 57.2million (**Figure 3**) in 2019. Countries from where Ghana imports palm oil are mainly Malaysia, Indonesia, Cote d'lvoire, Liberia, Singapore and Togo [9]. On the other hand, exports for 2019 was significantly lower with only 15,392 MT with a trade value of US\$ 11.1million, about one-fifth of the import value. For most of the years, imports were higher than exports except for 2012 and 2013 when crude palm oil exports far exceeded (31–69 times) the imports. Within the past one-half decades (i.e., 2005–2019), there has been substantial imports of crude palm oil to meet domestic and industrial needs. From 2005 to 2019, Ghana imported about 1.1 million metric tonnes of crude palm oil with a trade value of about US\$ 1.2billion. However, export quantity (in MT) within the same period was only about 18% of the total imports.

#### **1.3 Palm oil processing characteristics**

Palm oil is processed from fresh fruits using various techniques that differ in the level of mechanization and interconnecting material transfer mechanisms. The scale of operations also differs at the level of processing. Palm oil processing in Ghana (like other West African countries) is undertaken by four (4) distinct groups of actors [10]. These actors, according to their throughput and degree of complexity, are traditional, small-scale,

#### **Figure 3.**

*Trade value of export and import of crude palm oils, Ghana (2005–2019).*

medium-scale and large-scale mills. In terms of the level of complexity, the traditional producers use methods which are basically manual with the use of rudimentary tools. The small-scale producers use a variety of low-efficiency machinery ranging from simple hand presses and other stand-alone machines to a very varied combination of machines which cater for the various unit processes in the production cycle. In terms of throughput, small-scale processing units handle up to 2 tonnes per hour


#### **Table 1.**

*Scale of palm oil processing mills in Ghana and their characteristics.*

#### *Small-Scale Palm Oil Production in Ghana: Practices, Environmental Problems and Potential… DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.106174*

of fresh fruit bunches (FFB) [10, 11]. The medium-scale and large-scale mills have technologically up-to-date machinery, established by agro-industrial complexes for the production of palm oil [12] with production throughput of up to 60 tonnes of FFB per hour. Characteristics of the different palm oil mills in Ghana is summarized in **Table 1**.

Though small-scale producers are characterized by weak milling capacity and low quality crude palm oil produced [13, 14] they occupy a greater share of the palm oil processing industry. Available data shows that there were more than 1200 small-scale mills in Ghana [11] producing 60–80% of the national palm oil production [2, 15]. By 2015, the small-scale industry was employing over 2 million people [4] mostly in rural areas.
