The Times Of India (11/09/2020) Hyderabad: With a great demand for oil seeds in the state, the government is encouraging oil palm cultivation, agriculture minister S Niranjan Reddy said. The Centre also said 25 out of 33 districts in the state are suitable for oil palm cultivation, which was taken up in eight lakh acres this year.

Replying to questions raised by MLAs — Balka Suman, Guvvala Balaraju, Sandra Venkata Veeraiah and Gandra Venkata Ramana Reddy — during question hour in the assembly, the minister said chief minister K Chandrasekhar Rao had been giving top priority to oil palm cultivation. “While cooking oil usage is 21 million tonnes every year, we are importing oils from other countries by spending about Rs 79,000 crore a year. Of this, Rs 40,000 crore is spent on palm oil alone. To encourage oil palm cultivation, the Centre is giving incentives for its cultivation,” Niranjan Reddy said.

He said the land under cultivation is 1.41 crore acres in the state. The state government’s contribution was 55% of total paddy procurement by Food Corporation of India. In oil palm cultivation, the state is going to create history. To begin with, cultivation has begun in 6,000 acres, the minister said.

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