SPECIAL REPORT: Decline in palm wine production leads to scarcity, adulteration

Aniediabasi Edet has been a palm wine tapper for 65 years in Mbiabong Itam, Itu Local Government Area of Akwa Ibom State. Every day, the 85-year-old Nigerian civil war veteran leaves home at 5 a.m. and treks several kilometres to a swamp (Adep in the local language) where he has raffia palm trees. Proceeds from palm wine tapping helped him to build a house and train his eight children.

On 23 August 2023, he returned home with only two 20-litre jars of wine after toiling in the swamps for hours under a downpour. He worries that the milky-coloured alcoholic drink obtained from the fermented sap of raffia palm is drying up in his community.

Mr Edet is one of the many tappers and retailers in the oil-rich Akwa Ibom, whose livelihood is threatened by the decline in the local beverage production despite the price jumping by almost 1000 per cent in the last decade, from N300 to N2,000 a jar (10 litres) in the villages and N3,500 in Uyo, the state capital.

Mr Edet says young people are no longer interested in the production.

Raffia Palm at seed maturity stage

“The current generation feels palm wine is a bad thing. We don’t want to do what we met our parents doing again. They consider them bad because of what people read in the books,” he told PREMIUM TIMES last August.

Udo Evanson, a tapper in Ikot Ekpenyong, Mkpat Enin Local Government Area, also fears time is running out on the local wine.

“Everything has an end,” Mr Evanson said. “Five years ago, I used to tap at least seven jars (70 litres) in the morning and five jars in the evening, but it is no longer the same. Before, a stand of raffia palm could produce about 25 litres of wine in the morning, but now you hardly get five litres,” he said.

“However, other plants too no longer yield fruits like before,” he said, suggesting that poor yield was not peculiar to raffia palm.

Raffia palm and palm wine

Raffia palms belong to the plant kingdom Plantae and the family Arecaceae. Other family members include oil, date, and coconut palms. However, raffia palms are the only members of the family whose existence is threatened.

Raffia palm wine has two types: one with a sour taste made from ripe raffia palms, locally referred to as “palmy” or “Ukot Nsung,” and the other made from unripe oil palm trees, referred to as “Ukod Eyop” in the local language.

Traversing the marshy areas of Mbiabong Itam with Mr Edet was an arduous task for this reporter visiting from Uyo, the state capital. But Mr Edet understands the terrain. He handed this reporter a “white cane” – a bamboo stick for testing the depth of the swamps.

Oil Palm prepared for palm wine

Over two days, this reporter accompanied Mr Edet to his stands of raffia palms.

“We used to transplant the seedlings, but that is no longer the practice. When you plant the seedlings at the swamp, someone would cut them down,” Mr Edet said.

Mr Edet learned palm wine tapping from his late father. He said there were over 15 tappers in the community, but only three remained at the time of this reporter’s visit.

The local gin, called ogogoro or kai-kai, processed from fermented palm wine, is also affected by the scarcity of palm wine. Mr Edet said nobody in his entire community sells the original kai-kai.

“If you buy kai-kai in this community, know that is bunkering,” a euphemism for adulterated kai-kai.

How to process palm wine

Unlike oil and coconut palms, which mature in three years, a raffia palm takes 14 to 20 years to mature and dies within two to three months.

It dies because the top of the tree is cut down, and a small bunch of firewood is lit on the carved surface of the raffia palm. The heating process is done routinely till the raffia palm dies. Mr Edet says it ensures healthy production of wine.

Palm wine in a basin at Mr Frank’s retail shop

He used to tap 12 stands daily, but he now does only four. In his prime, he got over 1,400 litres of palm wine a day but barely gets 30 litres now, he said.

“People are no longer planting. It is so bad that I can stay up to three months without having a ripe raffia palm for harvest. Before, I was tired of cutting ripe palms every week. Then, I could have five mature raffia palms a day for harvesting.”

Mr Edet showed the reporter “Edad”, a tree bark added to “beautify” and turn the wine from milky-white to reddish. He said “edad” also reduces the alcoholic effect of palm wine.

“For some people, if “edad” is not added, the wine could trigger a stomach disorder that often results in diarrhoea. I am one of them. That is why I cannot drink any palmy without “edad,” Mr Edet said.

A tapper visits his raffia palm three times daily – morning, afternoon and evening but the wine is harvested in the morning and evening. Mr Edet said the afternoon visit is to renew the phase and keep it healthy.

Mr Edet uses a tapper’s knife, “Annun” in the local language, to cut the palm’s phase. His other tools include two ropes, one used to construct a seat for the tapper at the top of the tree and the other, a long one, to lower a container from the tree’s top.

Besides the wine, the prices of other items, including raffia palms and local cups used for drinking, have also increased. PREMIUM TIMES learned that a stand of raffia palms was sold for N200 a decade ago, but it is now N3,000. The local cup sold for N20 is now N300.

“The cups are extremely scarce,” Frank Akpan, owner of a palm wine retail shop, said, adding that he only bought a few because “some of my customers do not drink palmy without the local cups.”

Adulteration, money above safety

PREMIUM TIMES talked to people in the different local government areas about why raffia palm and palm wines have become scarce in the state.

Iniobong Charles in Mkpat Enin and Mr Nyong from Uruan LGAs said people do not plant raffia palms because of the long time a tree takes to mature.

Frank Akpan owns a “palmy joint” at 18 Wellington Bassey in Uyo. He said he travels over 40km to rural communities to buy palm wine at N2,500 a jar (10 litres). Some days, he returns with a quantity that cannot meet his customers’ demands.

He started retailing palm wine in 2017. At the time, a jar was sold for N800, and a 60cl bottle was sold for N50. Six years later, he buys a jar for N2,500 and retails it at N250 per 60cl bottle.

The scarcity of palm wine has triggered adulteration of the beverage, but Mr Akpan said it is easy to identify an adulterated one.

“Ordinarily, palm wine is supposed to turn sour after 120 seconds in the mouth, but if the sweet taste persists for long, definitely it’s fake,” he said.

Mr Akpan opened a bottle of palm wine, which produced a pop sound and ran over the container. He said that is an indication that the wine was not adulterated.

Trenchard Ibia, a soil scientist and professor at the University of Uyo, blamed the decline in palm wine production on the decrease in cultivation of “homestead raffia palm”.

Bartholomew Effiong, a lecturer in the Department of Food Science and Technology at the university, blamed the decline in palm wine on a lack of succession in the trade.

“The people that were the typical tappers are dead. The people coming up now want to drink wine but do not want to go through the intricacies of tapping,” he said.

Ofonime Akata, a crop scientist and head of the Department of Crop Science, Akwa Ibom State University, Mkpat Enin, said, “Tapping was the work of aged men, so the psychological reasoning also led to the people abandoning it.”

Raffia Palm freshly prepared for processing of palm wine

A plant pathologist, Yakubu Uwaidem, recalled vendors fighting over the local wine in a village he visited.

“Three merchants going to look for palm wine in an interior community were dragging a cake (jar) of palm wine with a tapper. This should tell you how scarce it is,” he said.

Mr Uwaidem said agriculture generally suffers in the south-south region due to the presence of crude oil, the primary source of revenue for states in the region.

This newspaper’s findings show that some vendors mix biscuits and saccharin, a sweetener, with palm wine for flavour. However, those in rural areas add water and saccharin.

Ekemini Ituen, a chemistry lecturer at the University of Uyo, told this newspaper that the practice of using biscuits, water and saccharine to “cook” palm wine became known in 2011 and is prevalent in Ikot Ambang axis of Uyo, the state capital.

Aniefiok Okon, a medical doctor at the University of Uyo Teaching Hospital (UUTH), told our reporter that the “saccharine” in palm wine causes diarrhoea.

Findings show that palm wine vendors indulge in the practice due to the absence of regulation.

Francis Ifem, a former head of the Uyo Office of NAFDAC, the food and drugs regulator, told this newspaper the agency does not regulate palm wine production.

“NAFDAC regulates only packaged products,” he said. “NAFDAC can only seal factories after investigation, but the Consumer Protection Council will seek redress for compensation if there is an injury.”

Palm wine in 60cl bottles

Seedlings production

Unlike coconut palm and oil palm seeds, which have enjoyed massive investment from the Akwa Ibom State government, raffia palms appear abandoned by the government and researchers.

Mr Edet lamented that there are no improved raffia palm seedlings from the government or researchers like other crops.

Economic importance of raffia palm, palm wine

Although data on the contributions of raffia palm and palm wine to the economy are unavailable, the wines are a source of livelihood for many in rural areas and for vendors and shop owners in cities.

Raffia Palm at seed formation stage

Many lovers of palm wine in Uyo told this newspaper that fresh palmy, better known as “Oto-Onyong” by locals, is essential for nursing mothers.

“Fresh palmy activates the production of breast milk in new mothers. That is why it is recommended for them to drink it, particularly those who have difficulty in milk production,” Akan Ukpe said.

However, Mr Okon, a physician, said the belief was cultural and had no scientific backing.

Apart from the wine, raffia palm fronds are sewn into mats used as roofing sheets in thatch houses in the villages. Piassava from raffia palm trees is also used to manufacture products such as chairs, shoes, tables, baskets, and boxes for clothes.

Other uses include home and event decoration materials, musical instruments, and local fishing gear artisanal fishermen use. Maggots from raffia palm trees are also eaten as food.

READ ALSO: Fire destroys palm kernel factory in Ebonyi

Remedy

Mr Effiong, the food scientist, said raffia palm and palm wine production could be renewed if the government is interested in the area.

“The Ministry of Agriculture is supposed to have extension agents in all these areas who are supposed to go to the grassroots, interact with the people, know what the problem is and bring feedback to the government for possible solutions. But we don’t have those people, and in most cases, they stay in offices without knowing what is happening in the field.

“The ones we do are at a very small scale where you use students for research work and contribute part of the money to publish papers and get some findings. But if it is going to be a full-scale research that you can come out and say this is this, it has to be a funded research work,” Mr Effiong said.

The Akwa Ibom agriculture commissioner, Offiong Offor, was contacted via calls and SMS for this report but has yet to respond.