A diverse group of motivated professionals manages the increasingly complex operations, with support from Dr. The mill employs over 200 people – mostly unskilled and semiskilled locals - at well above average living wage. The oil is processed in a local mill in Asuom using a combination of traditional manual processes and modern equipment at critical steps (separation of oil and water) to achieve high process yields. Serendipalm has also helped develop and disseminate locally adapted, high-yielding palm tree seedlings, which are more resistant to pests and better suited to local growing conditions. Serendipalm farmer members are trained in regenerative cultivation methods, such as the application of green manures complemented by techniques such as intercropping, pruning, weeding, and harvesting at the proper time. To provide a regenerative alternative, Serendipalm has contracted a network of over seven hundred smallholder farmers with landholdings averaging 5 - 7 acres in size. Before it was set up there were only two basic types of palm oil production in Ghana: large plantations that relied on pesticides with resultant impacts on the environment and risks to farmer health or smallholder farms that could not afford pesticides and therefore produced low yields and low incomes. The Serendipalm project began in 2007 in the town of Asuom in Ghana, without any clear-cutting or deforestation.
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