Equipment fabricator helps address drudgery in Niger Delta's oil mills through MADE's intervention in the palm oil sector

1. Muhat Nigeria Limited,
an agricultural equipment
fabricator is using his skills
and long years of experience
to improve smallholder
farmers income in the Niger
Delta region by providing
innovative solutions that
enable them access improved
technologies for agro-food
processing.
Like every other business, Muhat wanted to make more money from fabricating
and selling the 2metric ton (MT) capacity small scale processing equipment
(SSPE) technology designed by the Nigerian Institute for Oil Palm Research
(NIFOR), but the equipment which sold for NGN4m could only be afforded
by big commercial millers. Small-scale millers and processors who dominate
the palm oil processing industry and process an average of 0.5 tons of palm
fruits daily using less efficient methods could not afford these technologies.
As a result, Muhat could barely sell up to three SSPEs per annum. This meant
smallholder farmers and processors in the Niger Delta could not access the
improved processing technology whose major benefit is increasing oil yield by
28 to 30%.
The technology market changed for Muhat Nigeria Limited in 2014 when they
began engagement with the DFID-funded Market Development Programme
in the Niger Delta (MADE) project, which worked with interested fabricators of
agricultural processing equipment among other key market actors to improve
their capacity to fabricate and promote sales of improved and affordable
EQUIPMENT FABRICATOR
INCREASES PRODUCTIVITY
IN NIGER DELTA’S
OIL MILLS

2. technologies that will increase the incomes and profitability of small-
holder oil palm farmers and processors in the Niger Delta.
MADE’s palm oil intervention enabled Muhat Nigeria Limited to scale
down the SSPE from 2MT to 0.5 tons which made it possible to cut
down the price from about N4m to N750,000, with the expectation that
more affordable prices would trigger demand and result in increase
in number of units sold by the fabricator. The SSPE became more
affordable for small and medium-scale commercial processors who
sell milling services to poor smallholder farmers and mill users. The
improved technology further has the advantage of improved rapid
processing time, processing the same amount of fruit in 1.5 days as
the old engine did in six days; and reducing long fatiguing labour
commonly experienced with the traditional and semi-mechanised mills.
Engineer Babatunde Abdulkareem, the Managing Director for Muhat
Nigeria Limited was supported to step down the training on fabrication
and promotion of the scaled-down SSPE technology to about 25 other
equipment fabricators who are also fabricating and promoting the
benefits of usage to processors in the region. As a result of increased
awareness of the improved processing technologies, Muhat Nigeria
Limited has sold over 40 SSPEs worth N30m between 2016 and 2018 to medium-scale millers in nine additional States -
Delta, Abia, Cross River, Imo, Akwa Ibom, Ondo, Ekiti, Oyo and Ogun, a huge leap from the two or three orders they initially
received in a year. The installed 40 SSPEs have the potential to reach over 2,000 processors at an average number of 50
active processors per SSPE-installed mill.
Using the knowledge gained from adaptation of the SSPE, Muhat Nigeria Limited is also adapting other equipment into
small-scale sizes. Examples include the oil storage tank which he scaled down from 30,000 liters to between 5,000 to
15,000 liters; the Batch Dryer (for cassava chips) which he scaled down from 5 tons to 1 ton with plans to further scale down
to 0.5 tons. Due to Muhat Nigeria Limited’s expertise in fabrication, Engineer Abdulkareem became the lead consultant to
the European Union International Organisation for Migration (IOM) in setting up a pineapple juice factory that is expected to
employ over 100 human trafficking returnees in Edo State. Muhat has completed the fabrication of equipment worth up to
N50 million while actual processing of juice is expected to kick off in October 2019.
“The decision to scale down on size and cost of the SSPE and embark on its promotion was the best we had taken in
recent times as we experienced increased sales from average of 2 in previous years to 16 (300 percent increase) in the first
year of our engagement. Since then, it has been one customer bringing another”, Engineer Abdulkareem stated.