Rs 419cr Plan Outlay To Boost Oil Palm Cultivation

The agriculture ministry plans to promote the cultivation of oil palm, the highest oil yielding plant, in a big way to augment domestic availability of edible oil. It has set a target of bringing an additional one lakh hectares under oil palm plantation during the current plan. An outlay of Rs 419 crore has been earmarked for the purpose.

Of the outlay, about Rs 84 crore is to be spent by different state level oil federations for oil palm promotion. Over 32,000 hectares have already been covered by these plantations mainly in Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Tamil Nadu and Orissa. Some oil palm plantations have also sprouted in Gujarat, Goa, Tripura and Assam and West Bengal.

 

The ultimate objective is to have oil palm plantations over about five lakh hectares in the next 15 years. Plantations of this perennial crop yield, on an average, about four to five tonnes of palm oil and 0.4 to 0.5 tonnes of palm kernel oil per hectare in a year. This is seven to ten times the productivity of traditional oilseeds.

Oil palm cultivation is deemed to be more profitable than that of sugarcane, banana, coconut, cotton and groundnut.

However, palm oil requires specialised oil extraction processing. Besides,

the fresh fruit bunches (FFB) of this palm have to be crushed within 24 hours of harvesting to obtain good quality oil.

The government is offering financial assistance to the extent of 50 per cent of the cultivation cost