palm oil

…Gezo promoted the export of palm oil, produced by enslaved workers on royal plantations, as a substitute for the declining slave trade.

The traditional export of palm oil and palm kernels remains important. The Nigerian Institute for Oil Palm Research (1939) is here. Benin City is the site of the University of Benin (1970). Pop. (2006 est.) 1,500,000; (2016 est.) urban agglom., 1,495,000.

…vegetable fats (35–45 percent of palm oil). Stearic acid (C₁₈) is also present in most fats but usually in smaller amounts than palmitic. Cocoa butter is unusually rich in stearic acid (35 percent).

…is a net importer of palm oil. The larger coffee plantations are being replaced by small independent planters. An illicit ivory trade prospers, despite rapidly declining elephant populations. There are attractions for a tourist industry, but transportation and hotel facilities are poor or absent.

Rubber and palm oil are the dominant cash crops. Although the contribution of rubber to GDP has declined significantly since the mid-20th century, rubber production remains important and closely tied to domestic manufacturing. Palm oil plantations have proliferated since the 1970s, to some degree at the expense…

… and then pressed; the resulting palm oil is highly coloured because of the presence of carotenes. The kernels of the fruit are pressed in mechanical screw presses to recover palm kernel oil, which is chemically quite different from the oil from the flesh of the fruit.

…used in the preparation of palm oil; the fresh palm fruits are boiled in water, and the oil is skimmed from the surface. Such processes can be used only with seeds or fruits (such as olive and palm) that contain large quantities of easily released fatty matter.

…marine and vegetable oils, and palm oil. These fats yield soaps that produce little lather in cold water, more in warm water; are mild on the skin; and cleanse well. This is the leading group of fats used in the international soap industry, with tallow the most important member. Hard…

The town has a palm oil–processing plant and several breweries, and the National Root Crops Research Institute, at Umudike, is adjacent to the town. Umuahia has teacher-training colleges, Trinity College (theological), and several hospitals. Pop. (2016 est.) urban agglom., 330,000.

…quickly adapted themselves to offering palm oil as an alternative export to slaves.

…the British encouraged trade in palm oil in the Niger delta states, ostensibly to replace the trade in slaves. They later discovered that the demand for palm oil was in fact stimulating an internal slave trade, because slaves were largely responsible for collecting palm fruits, manufacturing palm oil, and transporting…