Bhubaneswar: The Odisha government on Tuesday signed MoUs with 6 companies to achieve the target for oil palm plantation.
The MoUs, signed by Directorate of Horticulture in presence of Agriculture Minister Ranendra Pratap Swain in Bhubaneswar, are in addition to existing oil palm companies covering about 20 districts in the state. As per the MoU, the companies will establish seed garden, nurseries of oil palm to meet the requirement of seedling, take up area expansion programme in the allotted districts and set up at least one processing unit in each district within the gestation period.
The state will ensure provision of fencing to safeguard the plantation, intercropping of different crops like maize, millets, vegetables, banana and cotton, micro irrigation to the plantation in close coordination with the oil palm companies to be engaged for Oil Palm Development Programme.
The farmers of the state will be assisted under the Centrally sponsored scheme NMEO-OP to the extent of Rs 29,000 per ha during plantation. The harvested fresh fruit bunches will be procured by the companies at the government declared price through DBT.
As on date, Odisha has covered around 19,000 ha in 15 districts from 2006-07 with involvement of 6 oil palm
companies. The Centre has set target of 10,500 ha under NMEO-OP from 2021-22 to 2025-26. The State has covered around 950 ha during the last 2 years.
This year, the state has planned to cover 1100 ha of oil palm plantation on cluster basis under NMEO-OP during 2023-24 and subsequently will cover 5000 ha in the next two financial years.
It may be noted that India imported around 133.50 lakh tonne of edible oils, out of which, about 56% was palm oil in 2020-21. With the aim of reducing the import of edible oils, the Centrally sponsored scheme NMEO-OP has been launched by the Centre.
