The pay is low and
the work involves scaling a 50-foot tree multiple times a day with no
safety net, so it is not surprising that Nigerian palm wine tappers are
struggling to find fresh recruits.
“No
newcomers,” said Anthony Ozioko, a slight 63-year-old, visibly drained
after a mid-morning climb up a palm tree in the southeastern town of
Nsukka. Nigerians have been drinking the sap from raffia trees, a
species of palm, since long before the country existed.
A palm
wine tappers A palm wine tappers (AFP) Palm wine was once the region’s
main social drink, an almost mandatory offer at events like weddings and
concerts, although the proliferation of beer and foreign liquor has in
part curbed the demand for the more traditional drink.
straight
from the tree, palm wine is a non-alcoholic drink and said by some to
have medicinal qualities, especially for the digestive system.
When
fermented and distilled, palm sap produces a drink that recalls a
bottle of Sprite, but with much less sugar and about as boozy as a
standard bottle of beer.
Experts say the consumer demand for palm
wine is strong, but production is struggling amid a decades long
agriculture sector decline in Nigeria, where the oil industry, Africa’s
largest, has become excessively dominant.
Attempts to develop the
palm wine sector have mostly floundered and the business largely remains
as rudimentary as ever: tappers climb the tree, process the sap and
deliver it directly to a customer, typically someone who lives nearby.
For young Nigerians the work seems to have little appeal.
“I don’t
want (my son) to be a tapper. I want him to be a pilot,” said Sabimus
Nwudo as his neighbour Ozioko described the gruelling work and marginal
profits. When a tree is ready to be harvested, the first task is “to
make the road” by using a machete to cut divots up the trunk, which
serve as slots for both feet and a locally made climbing aid that
resembles a harness, Ozioko explained.
His climb looked daunting
but he moved quickly, wedging his harness and feet in the pre-cut
divots, eventually securing himself at the top of the trunk, where he
collected the sap that had dripped overnight into a bottle attached to
the trunk. Ozioko’s expert movements made the work look deceptively safe
but serious injuries and some deaths have occurred, locals said.
Put
simply, “if you don’t know how to climb it, you’ll fall”, said the
tapper, resting on a chair after removing a few bees from his latest
haul and gulping down a cup. The industry is still “in its cradle” and
has so far failed to attract any meaningful investment, said Isona Gold
of the Nigerian Institute for Oil Palm Research (NIFOR). Gold said he
sees huge opportunities for growth but his vision for better
organisation and higher profits for tappers has stalled.
The plan
calls for the formation of clusters of 10 tappers, each harvesting 150
litres of palm wine per day, with a series of local processing plants
selling a bottled product — alcoholic or not — to vendors. The NIFOR
plan estimates each tapper earning 120,000 naira ($750, 570 euros) per
month.
If successful, “the young generation may want to go in”,
Gold said. The key is private sector involvement, he added, but so far
investors “have not indicated much interest”. As a niche product, and
one that arguably involves an acquired taste, palm wine’s appeal to
prospective investors is limited.
But the lack of infrastructure
speaks of a larger problem that has plagued Nigeria’s entire
agricultural sector, which analysts say has suffered from a woeful lack
of investment, both private and public, despite being the country’s top
employment sector.
Nigeria, with its estimated 167 million people,
was the world’s largest rice importer in 2012, according to the US
Department of Agriculture, bringing in 3.4 million tonnes despite having
the climate and land suitable to large-scale rice production.
Economists have pointed to massive rice imports to highlight the decay
of Nigeria’s agriculture sector.
While NIFOR and the government’s
Institute for Industrial Research are currently running pilot projects
that seek to make the palm wine industry more profitable, Ozioko’s
business remains a one-man shop. He aims to sell about 3.7 litres to a
local market each day, earning about $9.30.
That income is still
well above the national average in a country where most live on less
that $2 per day. Ozioko also sets aside some of his harvest for personal
use. When asked, he said he drinks palm wine every day and offered a
simple justification. Because “I’m a tapper”, he said.
