Towards Alleviating Threat Factors in Small Scale Palm Oil Enterprises in the Tropics: Evidence from Nigeria

Özet

Smallholder palm oil enterprises dominate the vegetable oil industryin Nigeria but their operational continuity and growth have beenunder serious threat. This study analysed the threat factors in smallscale palm oil firms with data collected from 84 palm oil processors.The finding indicates that the enterprise is profitable (₦486,745) butcould be wipe out by external environmental factors. Further resultindicates that the most significant threat factor to traditional palm oilextraction firms is climate hazards, particularly bush burning,product competitiveness with substitutes, theft of palm bunches, nonparticipation of youths, aging farmers and aged farmers’ quittendencies. It was recommended among others that environmentalprotection policies and regulations by relevant agencies should beintensified against bush burning and reduce the external threats tosmall scale palm oil extraction firms in Nigeria. Advocacies for climatechange mitigation measures should be intensified so as to reduce theexternal threats to small scale palm oil extraction firms in Delta State,Nigeria.