Production, analyse et applications des huiles végétales en Afrique

This paper analyses the evolutions of the different needs related to the food and non food uses of conventional oil crops (palm, cotton, groundnuts), immerging and marketable oil culture (shea) as well as the domestic oil cultures (Canarium, safou). Africa accounts for about 6.5% of the total World production of palm oil. In the last few years palm oil has witnessed an evolution in Africa through the diversification of its uses. A lot has also been done on the use of palm oil as bio-fuels. The production of cotton seed oil has equally witnessed changes from press extraction followed by solvent extraction to direct extraction with pure solvents followed by neutralisation in an appropriate medium as major innovations. West Africa produces about 50% of the total groundnuts production in Africa. Small scale processing of groundnuts is more popular than industrial processing. This is justified by the diverse uses of the different groundnut byproducts. The most remarkable innovations concern the emerging oil cultures such as shea butter. In fact the incorporation of 5% shea butter in chocolate formulations has given an added value to shea. Techniques have been put in place for improving on the production methods and quality of the butter. The evolution in this sector is better illustrated by the putting in place of an indirect solar dryer and a vertical manual screw press. The big handicap that slows down evolution remains at the level of the transfer of technology to the rural milieu. Problems on the transfer preservation of Canarium were resolved by preserving them in appropriate media and conditions. Dried safou fruits can now be found in the market. This illustrates the appropriation of technology by small and medium sized enterprises