Woman Narrates The Processes Of Transforming Palm kernel

by AnaedoOnline
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Uzorchukwu Okeke stirs a metal drum container holding water and palm kernel chaff. The heat from the three-stoned open cooking fire leaves her wheezing badly from fire wood smoke, tears welling up in her eyes. 

“The smoke does not bother me anymore because I have become used to it over the years,” Okeke says, unfazed about the risks doing this poses to her health.

The use of open fires and solid fuels for cooking is one of the world’s most pressing health and environmental problems, directly impacting close to half the world’s population and causing nearly 4 million premature deaths each year, according to the Global Alliance for Clean Cookstoves, a public-private partnership that seeks to promote clean and efficient household cooking solutions.

Globally, 2.9 billion people in developing countries still use traditional fuels such as firewood, charcoal, crop residues and animal dung to make their food on open fires and data from the UN on climate change shows that the smoke from cooking fires accounts for eight deaths every minute globally, impacting mostly women and
children.

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In the developing world, health problems arising from smoke inhalation, including respiratory infections, eye damage, heart and lung disease, and lung cancer are a significant cause of death in both children under five and women. Of the over 4 million deaths recorded annually as a result of the use of open fires and various types of solid material used as fuel to produce energy and provide heating for cooking, 27% are due to pneumonia, 18% from stroke, 27% from ischaemic heart disease, 20% from chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD)
while 8% from are from lung cancer, according to the  World Health Organization. For Okeke, it was violence that forced her family to move and start afresh elsewhere.

In 2003, the mother-of-five fled Kaduna State in Nigeria’s northwest region to the southeastern Nigerian city of Enugu following bouts of religious-influenced conflict that killed at least 3,000 people and displaced a further 63,000 people across the state.

Former Kaduna state governor, Mohammed Ahmed Makarfi had, in 2000, introduced sharia law, a move Christian citizens believed will turn Kaduna into a Muslim state. This sparked off anger and subsequently violence across the state.

“I abandoned everything and my husband even had to leave his shoemaking business,” said Okeke who, upon her family’s return to her native Enugu state, turned to processing palm kernel chaff into liquid oil and cake.

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“We had to run for our lives because that was most important, and we knew we were going to find something else to do down here.”

As she speaks, her hand firmly holds a long, wooden stick which she uses to stir one of the metal drum containers that stands in front of her, beads of sweat crowding her forehead. The container, filled with kernel chaff and water, steams with smoke constantly going up and disappearing into the horizon.

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The heat is almost unbearable, but she has to stir for hours to get the liquid product which serves as soap. What is left after the extraction of the oil, used as liquid soap, forms what is known as palm kernel cake, another by-product, which can be used as feed for swine and fertilizer for crop production.

It is exactly 17 years since the middle-aged woman joined the business. Every day, except on Sundays, she comes out in the morning and visits processing plants in search for kernel chaff and when she gets the quantity she wants, she returns to her routine.

She collects water from a nearby gutter and her place of work is characterized by filt. It stinks and is bordered by palm kernel manufacturing plants on one side and a Coca Cola manufacturing company from where the dirty water flows through.

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But Okeke does not care since she has to work hard to take care of the family. Her husband’s shoe-making business is floundering.

Health implications for women Many women, like Okeke, suffer from widespread health challenges resulting from
the use of firewood. The International Centre for Energy, Environment and Development (ICEED), reports that  93,000 Nigerians die annually as a result of smoke inhaled while cooking with firewood.

Dr. Nnaji Chibueze of the Centre for Energy Research and Development at the University of Nigeria, Nsukka says that indoor pollution caused by wood fuels burnt in inefficient stoves and poorly ventilated kitchens is a major cause of respiratory diseases in women from the South East zone who also suffer from eye problems as a result of constant use of wood in poorly ventilated kitchens.

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“Biomass fuel use has been found to be associated with tuberculosis, cataracts, low birth weight in babies of exposed expectant mothers and women trek up to 7-9 kilometres to source for plenty of firewood thereby increasing their stress levels in doing other housechoress", he said.

He further explains that woodfuel that is not properly burned to carbon dioxide is diverted into products of incomplete combustion – primarily carbon monoxide, but also benzene, butadiene, formaldehyde, polyaromatic hydrocarbons and many other compounds posing health hazards.

Other experts say that smoke inhaled by women while cooking is the equivalent of smoking between three to 20 packets of cigarettes a day. Okeke knows too well about some of these health challenges as she has battled serious body pains and spent money buying drugs from pharmacies. But her
livelihood options are limited.

“Working here has taken a serious toll on my health,” she says, holding the sticks she uses to stir with one hand. “Sometimes after working here, I return home, tired and exhausted and my entire body hurts.  “When the fire is too hot, it takes more than one hour before I get what I want”, she explained as she sniffled and attempted to wipe away dripping tears with the back of her wet hand.

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