Page:Niger Delta Ecosystems- the ERA Handbook, 1998.djvu/143

The Resources of the Niger Delta: Agriculture For oil palm, although long periods of cloud cover ensure yield potentials below those of Southeast Asia, the Niger Delta is the home of the oil-palm and fresh fruit bunch yields (FFB) of 350 kg per palm (say 25 bunches per year) is not unreasonable, given adequate inputs of Potassium and Magnesium that can be produced locally by using the ash from the burnt residues of the bunches.

13.3.3 THE ECOLOGICAL AND ECONOMIC PROBLEMS OF AGRO-INDUSTRY IN THE FRESH-WATER ECOZONE

The agro-industrial rice and oil-palm projects are a tempting solution to the desire to produce more food, not least because they attract state, federal and international funding (the prime reason for the attraction of governments to such projects). But they present a number of problems from a local viewpoint, as follows.
 * By clearing large areas of forest, even depleted or degraded forest, and replacing it with monoculture, a range of ecological problems arise including damage to hydrological and fish breeding systems, loss of species habitat and biodiversity, and crop susceptibility to pests.
 * Local People lose access to forest products including wild oil palm, raffia, timber and a range of NTFPs. Thus they lose income.
 * Employment opportunities are usually realised by non-indigenous people who come into the area, creating local discontent and social friction, which is exacerbated by a new elite of management staff (usually non-indigenous) who appear to be reaping all the financial benefits of the project.
 * Such projects tend to suffer from inefficient and even corrupt management so that returns on capital are low or negative, and yields fail to meet expectations or, at any rate, are not sustainable.

The overall result of such projects is an unfavourable readjustment of equity: many Local People lose income and a few employees and shareholders gain substantial financial benefits.

13.3.4 THE ADVANTAGES OF SMALL FARMER AGRICULTURE

By contrast, the advantages of encouraging small farmer methods of production are as follows.
 * Income equity is maintained and rural incomes enhanced.
 * Management is better and yields are higher because the farmer has an income incentive to be efficient. Even under the most adverse conditions of civil disorder small farmers continue to produce, whereas large plantations crumble.
 * A mosaic of small farms growing mixed crops, interspersed with forests in various conditions which is the result of well managed small farmer agriculture, does not present the same sort of ecological problems arising from large scale plantation agriculture.

However small-farmers depend on access to improved varieties and on easy access to a market for their produce often in the form of accessible processing plants. 141