- Palm oil Mill

With the construction of the oil press mill a milestone has been reached in Sierra Leone. The building of the oil press mill in Yele is the first in Sierra Leone. Due to the civil war all oil mills have been destroyed and farmers are convicted to the manual production process. In this rural area thousands of small farmers are running oil palm plantations (0,5 to 2 hectare). The pressing of the palm oil out of the fruits is a very labour-intensive process which besides causes a big loss of the oil. The consequences are the production of palm oil on a small scale and a big part of the fruits can neither be processed nor sold. For this reason farmers are not able to generate sufficient income and the economic development stands still. There is no money to maintain the plantations or to expand which decreases the revenues even more. With the construction of the oil press mill the vicious circle of the farmers can be broken.
Building In October 2007 a start has been made with the construction of the oil press factory in Yele. The construction of the oil mill has been made possible with the help of technical and oil palm experts Mr Guus Blaak, Mr Mike Henderson, Mr Jan Meijer and Mr Han Smeets. They have done a great job helping putting together all the pieces of buildings, building a water tower, setting up electricity facilities, setting up of generators, recruit and staff to run the factory etc Despite of the harsh local circumstances and the warmth (April and May being the warmest months of the year) the construction of the factory has been finished with only a delay of two weeks which is an excellent result. All experts and people involved have done a great but also a very tough job, especially taking into consideration the local harsh circumstances and these months being the warmest of the year. Almost literally, blood, sweat and tears have been shed!  The oil press mill is placed in a separate juridical entity in Sierra Leone, which is called Nedoil Ltd. The Lion Heart Foundation is shareholder, as a result of which future revenues will be available for its purposes.

Some details The oil press factory consist of five buildings being the oil press mill, the soap production factory, the storage, administrative building and a workshop annex canteen. The total surface of the factory is one hectare. The mill has a capacity of three tons of fruit benches per hour which is similar to 1000 litres of oil per hour. The maximum production capacity of the mill is 16 ton of palm oil a day. The equipment is supplied by Veenstra Machinefabriek in Coevorden (Holland), Prokal steam boiler in Purmerend (Holland), Lasaulec in Groningen (Holland) and many other suppliers. We thank them for their cooperation and the quality of the materials! The first production of oil is stored in barrels which have been transported from Freetown. The oil will be sold at the local market. The factory will be managed by Mr Samson with the supervision of Mr Donald Keus.
First palm oil pressed
After all the efforts the big moment of the first test has been run and with success. On the 25th of May 2008 the first palm oil was pressed out of 10 tons of fruit benches provided by local farmers. The quality and the taste of the oil has been tested by local women and they qualified the oil as excellent!

Impact
The construction and functioning of the oil press mill is a big milestone for Sierra Leone in general and for the Lion Heart Foundation and region of Yele in specific. The oil press mill is the first one in Sierra Leone. For the region of Yele the construction of the mill is in economic aspect very important and will have a big impact. Not only jobs will be created, but it will also speed up and improve the production of palm oil. Until today the pressing of oil has been a manual process which is very labour intensive. The improvement of this process will eventually result in a bigger income of the local farmers which will result in economic development of the region. apart from that the Lion Heart Foundation is shareholder of the oil press mill which is placed in a separate juridical entity which is called Nedoil Ltd.  Click here for more pictures.

Bart Hugen, medical doctor at the Magbenteh Hospital, made sure that this process was secured on film. Click here to see the film