SHADIKONGORO: The production of cooking oil at the Shadikongoro Irrigation project, situated some 180km east of Rundu have been halted due to the freezing cold weather.

Shadikongoro Irrigation project Manager Floris Smith told Nampa on Thursday that they stopped processing oil since the start of this winter season because it is cold which makes the process of filtering oil slow time consuming and becomes expensive as it use up a lot of electricity.

“We are not high production this winter season,” said the Shadikongoro Irrigation project manager.

Smith said to extract oil from the plant, the room temperature should be above20 degree Celsius and this becomes less expensive because you use less filter pipes.
Oil production at the project is however expected to commence at the end of next month August.

Due to low quantity of oil produced, the project is at this stage unable to commercialize the cooking oil and thus resorted to selling the oil to the local communities at a cost of N.dollars 11 per liter.
Sunflowers are grown on a 100hectares land at the project where about 25 percent of oil is extracted from there.

According to Smith, to commercial the cooking oil, the project needs to produce at least 8000 tons of sunflower seeds per year.
Meanwhile, Smith revealed that plans for the commercialization of the cooking oil are on the card and a business plan has already been presented to the Minister of Agriculture, Water and Forestry John Mutorwa.

The design for the label of the cooking oil has already been registered with the Ministry of Trade and Industry while a bar code was obtained and registered in Johannesburg, South Africa last year.

The nutritional value of the cooking oil was registered in Cape Town South Africa in the same year.

Different bar codes were registered for the cooking oil, which will be displayed on the container of the cooking oil’s 20ml, 25ml and 75ml containers once it gets commercialized.

Sunnflower is grown on dry land because there is apparently no formal market for cooking oil in the country.

The project has so far established a cooking oil processing plant, where 94 tonnes of sunflower seeds produce 25 000 litres of cooking oil.

If plans to produce the cooking oil on a commercial basis succeed, the product might also be used as part of the government’s drought relief aid programme.

Should the commercialisation of the cooking oil go as planned, the Shadikongoro project would become the first Green Scheme project to fully commercialise its product.

(edited)SHADIKONGORO; The production of cooking oil at the Shadikongoro irrigation project, situated some 180km east of Rundu, has been halted due to the current cold weather.

Shadikongoro project manager Floris Smith told Nampa on Thursday that they stopped processing oil since the start of this winter season because it is too cold, which makes the process of filtering the oil slow and time-consuming.

It also becomes expensive, as it uses a lot of electricity.

“We are not in high production this winter season,” said Smith.
He explained that to extract oil from the sunflower plant, the room temperature should be above 20 degrees Celsius, and this becomes less expensive because they then use less filter pipes.

Oil production at the project is, however, expected to commence at the end of August at the onset of spring.

Due to the low quantity of oil produced, the project is at this stage unable to commercialise the cooking oil, and thus resorted to selling the oil to the local communities at a cost of N.dollars 11 per litre.

Sunflowers for the project are grown on a 100-hectare piece of land, from where about 25 per cent of the project’s oil is extracted.

To commercialise the cooking oil, the project needs to produce at least 8 000 tonnes of sunflower seeds per year.
Nonetheless, Smith revealed that plans to commercialise the cooking oil process are on the cards, and a business plan has already been presented to the Minister of Agriculture, Water and Forestry, John Mutorwa.

The design for the label of the cooking oil has also been registered with the Ministry of Trade and Industry, while a bar code was obtained and registered in Johannesburg, South Africa last year.

Different bar codes were registered, and will be displayed on the containers of the cooking oil – in 20ml, 25ml and 75ml bottles – once it gets commercialised.

The nutritional value of the cooking oil was also registered in Cape Town, South Africa in the same year.
The project has so far established a cooking oil processing plant, where 94 tonnes of sunflower seeds produce 25 000 litres of cooking oil.

If plans to produce the cooking oil on a commercial basis succeed, the product might also be used as part of the government’s drought relief aid programme, and would become the first Green Scheme project to fully commercialise its products.