agriculture

Chiriquí palm oil plant underway

B. Gómez/LA PRENSA

oil profits: Farmers in the province of Chiriquí are being encouraged to cultivate the African palm tree, whose fruit is rich in oil. 1084479

Youths in the village of Santa María, in province of Chiriquí, have begun to view the palm trees growing tall in their midst as more than just a source of shade. Many loiter around the site of a new palm oil processing plant going up nearby, hoping to snag a construction job while they wait for the plant to open next July.

Located just minutes from Paso Canoa, the border zone shared with Costa Rica, the $7.9 million project being developed by the Cooperativa de Palma Aceitera de Chiriquí (Coopemapachi) will be able to process 20 tons of African palm fruit per hour, reported Coopemapachi manager Leandro Marquínez. That’s the equivalent, he added, of about two fully-loaded dump trucks.

Marquínez explained that new plant is part of the company’s long-term plan to boost production of palm oil in the province.

“We have to massively increase production throughout the region,” he said. “The plan is to expand the processing capacity [of the plant] in five years to 40 tons of fruit per hour.”

About 7,000 hectares of African palms are cultivated in the Barú district, generating an average of 175,000 tons of the oil-producing fruit each year. Coopemapachi controls 43 percent of the area’s production, with cooperative members, many of whom have colonized former banana farms, managing 3,000 hectares. The other two palm co-ops in the district, Copal and Coopegoth, control the other 4,000 hectares, at an estimated production of 100,000 tons.

Until the plant opens, Coopemapachi will continue to export the palm fruit to Costa Rica, while Copal and Coopegoth have brokered a deal with a Colombian processor, Barú S.A., based in Puerto Armuelles, on the Chiriquí coast.

Currently, the price of a ton of the fruit stands at $162, with farmers netting a near 50 percent profit of about $2,000 per hectare each year. Marquínez said that the promise of those profits are working in favor of Coopemapachi’s campaign to encourage palm cultivation in the region.

In addition to the profits from the palm oil, byproducts generated by the plant will be sold for use in animal feed and cosmetics.

The processing plant will require 80 workers, good news for those unemployed village youths waiting outside. “In November, we’re sending 80 people to Honduras to receive training. Until then, trained teams from Malaysia will arrive in Panama,” said Marquínez.

Most of the funding for the plant was granted by the Banco de Desarrollo Agropecuario.