AfricAlive visits life-saving palm oil plantation in Sierra Leone

AfricAlive is an initiative of Dutch students who are touring Africa in search of sustainable energy and development projects. In Sierra Leone they visit the Magbenteh Community Hospital in Makeni, which will be financed by palm oil, a commodity that has received a boost because of the biodiesel boom. The project not only brings modern health care to a deeply impoverished region, but also much needed jobs and incomes to the rural community.

This is the first in a series of three articles, in which we explore the potential of palm oil to contribute to social development in poor countries. Next we visit a group of Presbyterian women in Congo, who are tired of imported oil, and who have started their own palm oil initiative to break their dependence. Finally, we look at a famous palm oil cooperative in Costa Rica, where hundreds of farmers have joined forces to escape poverty with their crop. Today, the cooperative serves as an example of how local ownership and sustainable development can result in social progress. Palm oil does not in itself deserve the bad reputation some have ascribed to it. Rather, the modes of production in which it is caught deserve scrutiny.

Development work carried out by Western NGOs is often highly idealistic and keeps local people dependent on foreign aid. It may be philantropic to build a hospital in Africa with donated money, but if the project cannot be sustained over the longer term and if it doesn't become self-reliant, it becomes a perversity. Charity and paternalistic approaches to development are not the way forward - we all know the mantra, but very few people act accordingly. The Magbenteh Community Hospital in the north of Sierra Leone shows a different approach. Local smallholders there show overwhelming support for the plan, which consists of helping them to become modern, efficient palm oil producers - the profits of which will finance the clinic. A survey amongst more than 2000 of the region's rural families - who own the plantations - indicated 95% of them are willing to join the program, which is set to boost their incomes.

Between 1991 and 2001 a horrific civil war brought Sierra Leone to brink of collapse. Although the country has vast mineral resources - of which the diamonds are the most notorious - and the land is fertile, it belongs to the poorest countries in the world. The country is now slowly recovering after a relative peace has set in. But the war has destroyed almost the entire country's infrastructures, including most medical facilities. As a result of the lack of medical attention, more than 40% of all children dies before reaching the age of five and the average life expectancy is no more than forty years.

During the opening of the Magbenteh Community Hospital in Makeni, where he was present on the request of a friend, Dutch development worker Fred Nederlof was moved by the story of the project's founding father: Harald Pfeiffer. As a Swiss born physiotherapist working in Sierra Leone for 18 years, he had - with enormous efforts - accomplished the construction of the hospital. However there was no money left for the running costs: personnel, medication, maintenance, and so on. Back in Holland Fred Nederlof founded the Lion Heart Foundation (LHF), which has 'adopted' the hospital for a transition period of ten years.

To keep the hospital running, it currently depends on foreign support - an unsustainable state of affairs. To make it self-reliant in the future, the LHF has drawn up a masterplan. In this plan the hospital will generate revenues from paying patients, get support from the government and plans are formulated to create revenues from projects in the region. AfricaLive focuses on one these projects: the "Best of both worlds" palm oil project.

In the area around Yele around 3.500 farmers make a living from small scale palm oil plantations. These farmers work with low yielding palm trees and bad equipment. Their plantations are tiny pieces of land, covering 2 to 3 acres. The fruits of these palms are being converted into oil by primitive hand mills in a labour intensive process. This reduces the quality and quantity of the oil and thereby the revenues for the farmers:
energy :: sustainability :: biomass :: bioenergy :: biofuels :: biodiesel :: palm oil :: poverty alleviation :: social sustainability :: Sierra Leone ::

The 'best of both worlds' palm oil project consists of the development of sustainable commercial activities in the agricultural sector, with the participation of local communities. A oil palm nursery has been started, in which superior palm oil seedlings will grow into young trees, before they are planted on the plantations. The trees are high yielding cultivars. Besides the nursery, plans are being drawn up to construct an mechanical oil pressing facility.

After preliminary plans for the construction of a large centrally run plantation, the LHF now wants to involve the local farmers in their plans and they are now investigating the viability of a micro credit program. The advantage of this is that the project can count on the support from the local population and already existing palm plantations are being used and improved.

Farmers can purchase a ‘complete package’, consisting of the superior palm, the required equipment, technical and agronomic advice and supervision and the possibility to press the palm fruits mechanically. Research has shown that this will improve the revenues of the farmers by 50%. This means the plan will lead to higher employment rates, less poverty and rural development. A survey, held amongst 3.500 farmers, revealed that the plan could count on the active support of 95% of the farmers. To keep them involved and informed, regular meetings with them are conducted in which they are asked for their point of view on the project's implementation.

To take the project out of idealism, and into realism, the LHF created a commercial company, Ned Oil ltd., which will allow the palm oil farmers from around Yele to use its pressing facility to transform their palm fruits into palm oil, resulting in a higher quality as well as a larger quantity. The management of the facility will eventually be recruited from the local population and all other employees will be recruited from the local population from the start.

The AfricAlive team thinks this project is an example of existing and future development projects. The baseline should always be: 1. Support from the local community, 2. Self-sustainability and continuation of the project after the NGO distances itself and 3. Protection of the local environment by undertaking the project in a socially responsible manner. Next to this, the project stimulates self-reliance, entrepreneurship and it creates employment, both directly and indirectly.

References:
AfricAlive: overview of projects.

The Lion Heart Foundation: Magbenteh Hospital project.