Patanjali to grow oil palm on 38,000 hectares in nine Arunachal districts

Firm lays foundation stone for oil palm mill in the state where already has two nurseries and plans three more

Patanjali Foods laid the foundation stone for an oil palm mill at Industrial Growth Centre, Niglok in East Siang, Arunachal Pradesh, the company said in a release on Wednesday.

The food major announced plans to undertake oil palm plantations on 38,000 hectares of land across nine districts in the state. It already has two nurseries at Pasighat and Holangi and is in the process of setting up three more in Lower Siang District at Khurram, FTC and Dipa. According to the company, the move will give impetus to the state's economy and will generate employment, apart from boosting local farmers’ income.

Patanjali Foods is one of the largest palm oil plantation firms in India and has access to assets in about 55 districts across 11 states, including Telangana, Karnataka, Gujarat, Odisha, Assam, Mizoram and Tripura.

The firm works with 43,000 farm families and has 60,000 ha area under palm plantation. It also has 182 farmer information-cum-FFB procurement centres, 22 godowns and two state-of-the-art oil palm processing mills in Andhra Pradesh.

Moreover, it proposes to undertake large scale cultivation of oil palm on 500,000 hectares under the centrally sponsored scheme, National Mission on Edible Oils-Oil Palm (NMEO-OP), which has a special focus on the Northeast Region and the Andaman and Nicobar Islands

"Patanjali Foods has committed to the government’s NMEO-OP programme and plans to undertake large-scale cultivation on 500,000 hectares of land. Of this, 320,000 hectares will be in the Northeast, which will immensely benefit the region's economy for over 30 years," Patanjali Foods said in its release.

It added that an average annual production of around 750,000 metric tonnes of palm oil will save Rs 10,500 crore of forex outgo annually. Patajali also aims to generate employment for about 580,000 persons.

Patanjali Foods generated revenue of Rs 24,205 crore in FY22, a growth of about 48 per cent over FY21.