Backyard Farmer: Oil Extraction
Every morning I check the weather conditions as a backyard farmer to give me access to plan the day's activities, farmers activities depend on the type of farming (horticulture farming, aquaculture farming, crop farming, mixed farming, livestock farming ), the size of the farm and the season. Some farmers depend on rainfall others use irrigation.
When I found that the weather wasn't good for the work I intended to do, I decided to change my plan because it might be raining. I got close to a palm tree and it was amazing, the fruits are ripped and ready for harvest so I quickly went for a ladder since the palm tree was tall and harvested them.
I was able to bring two bunches down and manually separated the fruits from the bunches.
The exciting moments are here, the palm nuts ( fruits) were plenty which I could sell them in exchange for money, we could use some for food (soup) but I realised the fruits were abundant at the market so I changed the decision on selling them to oil extraction. So to prevent enzymatic spoilage and make it easier to extract the oil, fruits were boiled to make soft. I pounded the fruits by using the traditional mortar and pestle to break the oil-bearing cells which release the palm oil. I mixed the pounded fruits with water so that, the nuts, fibers, and other debris could easily be sieved to get the crude palm oil. I boiled the crude palm oil and allowed it to settle and separated the clean red oil (palm oil).
At this point I could keep the oil for future use. This is free from my backyard farming. One of the reasons I love farming, expect more of my daily activities as a backyard farmer. God bless my community @hiveghana, @macsamm and @peleboss.