By Nicholas Osei-Wusu
A study by the Ashanti regional directorate of Agriculture into the production of palm oil has identified a highly possible contamination of the edible oil with metallic substances at the processing stage.
The study has revealed that the contamination is due to nature of the equipment being used in the processing of the oil palm into the edible oil.
At a meeting to disseminate the study Report in Kumasi, the Ashanti Regional Agric Engineer, Dr. Clara Darko, said the problem can be eliminated through the provision of machinery, training and education to the processors in the best processing methods.
The study was to identify challenges involved in the oil palm processing business.
It was undertaken by a team of senior staff of the Ashanti Regional directorate of Agriculture of the Ministry of Food and Agriculture and partners.
The team is made up of Dr. Clara Darko, the Regional Agric Engineer, Reverend John Manu, the Regional Director of Agric and Mr. Benjamin Ninoni, the Regional Monitoring and Evaluation Officer.
The others are Professor Ellis Sabutey of the University of Roehampton in the United Kingdom and Mr. Benjamin Kusi, Country Director of Self-Help, an NGO.
The study, which spanned one year starting from 2021, looked into different issues affecting palm oil production.
It was partly funded by the Roehampton University.
Among these are the drudgery the processors go through and the safety of the final product, which is palm oil, sold on the open market to consumers.
The study was conducted in the Juaben Municipality, one of the well known centres of palm oil production in the Ashanti region.
The Meeting held in Kumasi at the instance of the study team in Kumasi, was attended by some of the oil processors drawn from various production centres in the region, District Directors of Agric and staff of the Food and Drugs Authority, FDA.
The Meeting was used by the team to bring to the knowledge of the participants, report of the study.
A Member of the study team made a power point presentation of the Report covering what informed the study, scope of the study and findings.
The study revealed that even though oil palm processing is very tedious from start to end, it revolves around women who constitute about 90 percent of the direct actors, the greater majority of who are aged.
Another finding of the study is that at no point at the oil palm processing period do the processors add the poisonous Sudan-4 substance.
The Sudan-4 substance is what is believed to increase the reddish colouration of the palm oil ostensibly to increase its market value on the open market.
Sudan-4 is said to be a cancer-causing substance that has been banned by the Food and Drugs Authority.
A member of the study Team, Dr. Clara Darko, who doubles as the Ashanti Regional Agric Engineer, told GBCNews that factors like poor environmental conditions and the rusty nature of the metal equipment used greatly compromise safety of the palm oil for public consumption.
“We realized that, most of the machines they use are not food grade. Normally, for machines for processing oil, it should be made of stainless steel but most of them are made of millstone and galvanized steel. So it doesn’t help with our safety issues”, Dr. Darko emphasized.
A 58-year old woman who has survived on this business for 18 years through which she is currently educating two of her children at the university, Madam Ama Nyame from Juaben, corroborated part of the findings of the study and called for state support in the provision of improved machinery to help them increase productivity.
She noted that “the quantity of oil palm I could have threshed in just a week with a machine, I end up spending over a month to work on it. We therefore appeal to the government to support us with machines to improve efficiency and optimize productivity.”
The Ashanti Regional Director of Agric, Rev. John Manu, said the oil palm processing business constitutes an important part of the food value chain that needs equal attention hence the research to identity the challenges affecting the sub-sector.
