J-Palm Liberia Turning 'Waste' into Wealth, Jobs, and Opportunities

In Liberia, palm trees grow naturally everywhere – like grass.

However, more than 90% of smallholders live on less than $1.25 a day. Due to lack of access to processing technology, farmers have to manually squeeze out the palm oil. This inefficiency results in 35% of palm fruit going unharvested every year, and 53% lower oil yield. Additionally, farmers waste almost all of the oilseeds (palm kernels) because there are no buyers.

We operate mini mobile palm oil mills in very remote villages. Our machines reduce processing time by 75% and increase extraction rates by 53%. Furthermore, we purchase the palm kernels from the farmers, creating a market for a previously wasted resource. As a result, over 5000 farmers with whom we currently work have tripled their monthly incomes.

We use the kernels to create a range of natural beauty products under our “Kernel Fresh” brand, and are setting up a new factory to process the kernel shells into clean-energy charcoal briquettes.