Is 10 hectares enough to start a palm oil business and how much capital would you need?

Question

the land is there (in philippines), about 14 hectares... i just wanted to know if i do decide to use 10 hectares of the land for just growing and harvesting... how much would i need (pesos or dollars)...

Answer 1

You will need to seek out many of your own answers from your own experience of the business and from those that are in the business.  Do you know where your market is for the oil that you will be producing?  

Have you talked with these buyers to understand what qualities and grades they are looking for?

Is this a side business or do you need the money from this business for your personal use or family use?

I am from the corn belt so the palm oil business is not part of my understanding, yet the principles are the same as for someone starting a grain operation or a livestock farm.  We encourage young farmers to work on other operations to gain experience, go to school, etc.  Hopefully a few of these suggestions help.

Answer 2

Where is your lot located. A Malaysian company in Misamis Oriental is looking for land areas 10 hectares and above for leasehold agreement. They want to plant palm oil.

Answer 3

I've been hesitant to try to answer your question because I'm not sure what kind of palm oil business that you are talking about, Are you thinking of growing or processing or both. Ten acres would be enough for planting enough palm oil trees for a good family sized business. If you already have the land, you are not going to need a lot of money to get started. Mainly just the cost of the tree seedlings and labor to get started. Your biggest investment is time to get producing trees. I'm sure that you can farm between the rows of trees and provide yourself food and some product to sell while you wait on your trees to come into production. Try to grow a high value crop, such as tomatoes. If you are talking about processing the kernels for oil, there is not to much that I can help you with. I know there are several levels of sophistication in processing of palm oil. From the simple processing on the farm to factories processing the oil and I don't know where you fit in here. You may want to process your own oil and buy kernels from your neighbors. Also you would need to process the high quality kernel oil itself, from the seeds.