Of 2.8 mn hectares, 58% potential oil palm acreage lies in 5 states: ICAR

The National Mission for Edible Oil-Oil Palm (NMEO-OP), which the Centre had launched a few months ago with an outlay of more than Rs 11,000 crore, might look to expand the maximum area under oil palm in Andhra Pradesh and Telangana in the south, and Assam, Arunachal Pradesh, and Tripura in the Northeast.

According to an assessment by the Indian Council of Agricultural Research-Indian Institute of Oil Palm Research (ICAR-IIOPR), of the 2.8 million hectares it identified for this last year, almost 58 per cent is in these five states, the government said in a reply to questions in Parliament.

That apart, the study has found that oil palm requires less water than crops like rice, bananas, and sugarcane. In all, the study has spotted 284 districts in which palm plantations can be taken up as an alternative, according to a Parliament reply shared by the government recently.

Most of these districts are in Bihar (35), Madhya Pradesh (29), Maharashtra (28), Telangana (27), Chhattisgarh (15), and Karnataka (15).

The criteria

The Centre said the reassessment committee of the ICAR-IIOPR had in 2020 identified land suitable for oil palm cultivation in irrigated and rainfed conditions, using remote sensing and geographical information systems (GIS).

For irrigated conditions, the groundwater level, annual rainfall, minimum temperature, and double- or triple-cropped areas were key parameters.

In the case of the rainfed category, the following parameters -- rainfall, minimum temperature, elevation, slope, soil depth, and the length of continuous dry period -- were identified to delineate potential regions, the reply said. It further said in rainfed conditions, oil palm required about 1,800 mm of rain a year, or 150 mm per month. Even in irrigated conditions, rainfall is seen as a key parameter with a weighting of 7 per cent.

The target

According to officials, the new mission plans to raise oil palm cultivation to one million hectares by 2025-26 and 1.7-1.8 million hectares by 2029-30.

At present, it is on around 340,000 hectares, largely in Andhra Pradesh and a few Northeastern states. The target is to up domestic production by three times to 1.0-1.1 million tonnes by 2025-26 and 2.8 million tonnes by 2029-30.

However, this will be a very small amount of the import of edible oils.

The Solvent Extractors Association (SEA), in a recent presentation, said by 2025-26, India’s domestic edible oil demand would be around 26 million tonnes, of which just around 13 million tonnes will be met through the domestic production of oilseeds.

Therefore, 12-13 million tonnes will have to be imported even in 2025-26, the SEA said.

What is the mission?

In the Oil Palm Mission, there was a mechanism to ensure a viability price, like MSP, for farmers, along with deficiency price payment through direct benefit transfer. 

Under this, there will be price assurance for oil palm farmers for their fresh fruit bunches (FFBs), from which palm oil is extracted.
 

This will be set every year for the oil palm year, which runs from November 1 to October 31.

The problems 

Oil palm cultivation has been looked at with misgivings due to its debilitating impact on the environment and bio-diversity.

A WWF Report in 2013 found that in the major palm oil-producing regions of Indonesia and Malaysia, almost a third of forest loss in the previous 10 years was due to the expansion of oil palm.

When forests are felled and peat swamps drained, they are often burnt, creating a haze, affecting people’s health and disrupting economic activities.

“That apart, when forests shrink, so does the home of endangered species, several of whom are now on the brink of extinction,” the WWF report had found. 

On Friday Meghalaya's National People's Party (NPP) MP Agatha Sangma urged the Centre in a debate in Parliament to reconsider the palm oil mission and go into a proper consultation before implementing it in the Northeast and Andaman and the Nicobar Islands.