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Viewing cable 06KINSHASA1182, Palm Oil Making a Comeback in the DRC

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Reference ID Created Released Classification Origin
06KINSHASA1182 2006-07-25 14:42 2011-08-25 00:00 UNCLASSIFIED Embassy Kinshasa
VZCZCXYZ0006
RR RUEHWEB

DE RUEHKI #1182/01 2061442
ZNR UUUUU ZZH
R 251442Z JUL 06
FM AMEMBASSY KINSHASA
TO RUEHC/SECSTATE WASHDC 4445
INFO RUEHXR/RWANDA COLLECTIVE
RUCNSAD/SOUTHERN AFRICAN DEVELOPMENT COMMUNITY
RUCPDOC/DEPT OF COMMERCE WASHDC
RUEHRC/DEPT OF AGRICULTURE WASHDC
UNCLAS KINSHASA 001182 
 
SIPDIS 
 
SIPDIS 
 
E.O. 12958: N/A 
TAGS: EAGR EAID ECON ETRD CG
SUBJECT: Palm Oil Making a Comeback in the DRC 
 
 
1. (U) Summary: Industrial palm oil harvesting and processing is 
reviving in a once agriculturally-productive region of the DRC. 
Emboffs visited a rehabilitated palm oil plantation near Lisala, 
Equateur province that has begun producing palm oil again after 
nearly 10 years of inactivity. Other crops grown in the region, 
including rubber, coffee, and cocoa, are also being processed for 
sale to local markets. This activity is increasing employment and 
access to health services for the local community, and is supplying 
much-needed raw materials for domestic industries in Kinshasa.  Oil 
palm research and seedling production is also once again underway. 
End summary. 
 
2. (U) USAID Food for Peace Officer and Econcouns visited the Group 
Blattner International (GBI) plantation at Binga, Equateur province, 
in late May.  Binga is 130 kilometers (90 miles) north of Lisala, a 
town which is located on the Congo River about halfway between 
Kinshasa and Kisangani.  GBI, whose owners include U.S. citizens, 
purchased the plantation in August 2004, including a non-operational 
palm oil factory, an agricultural research center, and dozens of 
colonial-era houses.  A 300-bed hospital, originally built for 
plantation workers and their families, is now being rehabilitated as 
well.  Binga Plantation is one of six separate plantations in 
Equateur province that GBI is rehabilitating. 
 
---------- 
Background 
---------- 
 
3. (U) Binga Plantation was originally created by a Belgian company 
in 1914.  The plantation consists of over 10,000 acres of oil palms, 
nearly 5000 acres of rubber trees, 800 acres of coffee, and 500 
acres of cocoa.  Before the conflict that began in 1996 in the 
Congo, the plantation employed over 4000 workers; GBI now employs 
656.  There are 979 former employees waiting to be put back to work 
and another 440 who are share-cropping portions of the plantation. 
The original oil-processing plant was constructed in 1930, and still 
runs on steam generated by burning the residues of processing. 
 
--------------- 
The Oil Factory 
--------------- 
 
4. (U) Processing begins with the delivery of truckloads of oil palm 
"regimes", each of which weighs close to 20 pounds and consists of 
masses of fiber and palm nuts, which are bright orange when mature. 
These regimes have been harvested by hand from the tops of palm 
trees, 20 to 30 feet above the ground.  At the factory, the regimes 
are cleaned and roasted in ovens before the nuts are separated from 
the fibers and prepared for pressing.  The entire process, quite 
labor intensive, takes a few hours and yields two end products: raw 
palm oil, a thick, gooey, high-cholesterol liquid that is nearly 
solid at room temperature and must be further refined; and the 
fibers and pits from each palm nut, which are recycled to fire the 
boilers that create the steam to run the plant.  Modern touches 
include overhead electric lighting, powered by "palm gas", a 
three-to-one mixture of palm oil and diesel fuel, used to fuel 1000 
KW generators. 
 
-------------- 
Other Products 
-------------- 
 
5. (U) The Binga Plantation also produces natural rubber, which is 
tapped like maple syrup from rubber trees and then brought to the 
plant in softball-sized lumps for processing.  (Note: Modern rubber 
differs from the infamous rubber collected by force during the 19th 
century in the Congo, which came from a type of wild vine found in 
the forest.  End note) The raw rubber is heated, cleaned and refined 
before being rolled out into thin sheets the size of bath towels for 
air curing.  After a few days, the rubber sheets resemble thick, 
transparent leather and are formed into 80-pound bundles for 
shipping.  GBI uses this natural rubber in the production of vehicle 
tires at its factory in Kinshasa. 
 
---------------------- 
Binga Research Station 
---------------------- 
 
6. (U) The Binga Agricultural Research Station opened in 1969 and 
based its work initially on experimental blocks of palm trees, 
planted there in the 1950s, and on a nearby Unilever Company 
experimental block.  These trees provided the initial genetic stock 
from which the Binga Research Station began producing improved 
varieties of oil palms in the 1970s.  (Note: the African oil palm, 
Elaeis guineensis, is native to the Congo basin, but the wild 
variety has large pits and very little oily pulp.  End note.) 
Initial crosses were compared for oil production and resistance to 
the oil palm wilt disease, fusarium, referred to locally as "palm 
AIDS."  When the best trees began producing after five years, the 
Binga station began marketing non-certified wilt-resistant palm 
seedlings, and this was followed in 1983 by the first certified 
wilt-resistant seedlings.  Initial production of one million 
seedlings per year increased to 3.5 million per year by 1985.  More 
than half of these seedlings, sprouted in indoor "hot rooms" at 
Binga, were exported under the trade name UNIPALM to African, South 
American, and Asian countries throughout the 1990s, including the 
sale of more than two million seedlings to Indonesia and Thailand in 
1997 and 1998. 
 
7. (U) Seedling production stopped in early 1999 in the war period. 
Until 2004, when GBI purchased and began rehabilitating Binga, very 
few seedlings were exported but the stock trees were maintained. 
Today, there are still 100 seed-producing trees, with 50 additional 
trees coming into production soon.  The station is now producing 
250,000 commercial seedlings per year.  It uses palm seeds and 
pollen from a variety of sources including Angola, Cameroon, 
Nigeria, and Ivory Coast.  The director of the station claims that 
Binga is now the source of the most diverse oil palm germplasm in 
the world. 
 
---------------- 
Future Prospects 
---------------- 
 
8. (U) GBI plans to continue investing in palm and rubber 
plantations in Equateur province.  This includes replanting aging 
stands of oil palms and rubber trees (Note: Oil palms and rubber 
trees have a productive lifespan of about 25 years.  End note.), 
enlarging and modernizing oil and rubber processing plants, and 
bringing more of what are essentially share-cropping operations into 
the GBI plantation system.  All of these activities are expected to 
increase local employment and revitalize what has been for many 
years a moribund local economy.  GBI is well-placed to market the 
produce of these rehabilitated plantations, all of which are within 
easy striking distance of the Congo River, since it has its own 
riverboat fleet to take palm oil and rubber down the Congo River to 
Kinshasa.  There, it has a ready market for palm oil with producers 
who cannot get enough domestic products to fulfill their needs, and 
a use for natural rubber in GBI's own tire factory. 
 
9. (U) Comment.  The rehabilitation of existing palm and rubber 
plantations such as Binga is one important way to stimulate economic 
growth in the DRC, supply domestic industry, and begin producing for 
export again.  Even now, the Congolese industries that require raw 
palm oil for the production of cooking oil, soap, margarine and 
cosmetics must import oil from Indonesia and Malaysia.  This is 
doubly ironic, since the DRC was once a palm oil exporter itself 
(over 400,000 metric tons per year in the 1970s) but now imports 
from the same countries to which it supplied improved oil palm 
seedlings to a little over 20 years ago.  While investments such as 
GBI's are neither very large nor risky, they are still few and far 
between due to lack of infrastructure and a difficult regulatory 
environment.  Basic agricultural goods, such as manioc, coming into 
Kinshasa are still heavily taxed despite the chilling effect that 
this has on up-country production.  Hopefully the eventual success 
of an operation like Binga will convince others to invest similarly 
in the DRC and the GDRC will promote rather than hinder such 
efforts.  End comment. 
 
Meece