Learn
How a community funds one palm cycle.
Walk a cycle the community funds together, set a sum against a savings account, then move through the trade that made this coast.
Walk a cycle
Join
You put naira into a named cycle, with other investors. The term is eight, ten, or twelve months. You are not opening a deposit. You are funding one stretch of work on the estate.
The same naira
What the same money earns in each place.
Pick an amount, then how long the cycle runs. Each card shows the money you put in, what gets added, and the total at the end.
1. How much you put in
2. How long the cycle runs
₦100,000 in a savings account adds about ₦8,000 over a year, so you would hold ₦108,000. The same ₦100,000 in this cycle adds ₦28,000 over 10 months, so the terms return ₦128,000.
Savings account
You put in
₦100,000
Added over one year
+ ₦8,000
You would hold
₦108,000
Your money
The extra
About 8% a year. Central Bank of Nigeria, 4 September 2026.
This cycle
You put in
₦100,000
Added over 10 months
+ ₦28,000
The terms return
₦128,000
Your money
The extra
28% on the cycle. A harvest can miss, so this is the terms, not a promise.
The cycle adds ₦20,000 more than a year of savings interest, and it does that in 10 months.
The trade
Before it was an ingredient, it was the cargo.
Five stops, from a small shipment to the estate at Elele. Pick one, or step through them.
160
tonnes a year
1790s
A small trade
British ships were already carrying West African palm oil. On the coast the oil was food, fuel, and something people traded.
1 of 5
Savings figures from the Central Bank of Nigeria weekly interest-rate sheet, 4 September 2026. Trade volumes from the nineteenth-century Oil Rivers record. Palm maturity from the Nigerian Institute for Oil Palm Research. The comparison is illustrative. A cycle is not a deposit.