Kalahandi (Lingaraj Mishra): Kalahandi District Magistrate Sachin Pawar Prakash launched ‘Palm Oil Sapling’ plantation on Monday at Suringpadar of Takkarla Gram Panchayat under Narla Block. Under the Central Government’s Palm Oil Scheme, farmers are encouraged to cultivate palm oil in their open fields by providing free palm oil saplings, subsidized medicines, farming equipment, deep tube wells, motor pumps, etc. This year, the farmer started palm oil cultivation at the beginning of the rainy season, so the District Magistrate launched this Central Government scheme by planting palm oil saplings for the first time in the 15 acres of farmland of Takkarla Venket Rao.
On this occasion, Narla Group Development Officer Bipin Bihari Deep, Takkarla Sarpanch Ramachandra Sahu, DFO of North Division Prabhakar Verma, District Chief Agriculture Officer of Agriculture Department Pramod Kumar Behera, ADAO Shishir Bishoi, Narla Assistant Agriculture Officer Praveen Kumar Sahu, DDH Ajay Pradhan from Horticulture Department, ADH Monalisa Pradhan, AHO Anant Narayan Panda, GM Prabhakar Rao, AGM Chandra Kumar, Manager Ranjan Kumar Das, Office Assistant Kisan Pradhan, Narla Field Officer Prithimiyy Mishra and Palm Oil Farmers Venket Rao, PP Reddy were prominently present. Venket Rao, the District Magistrate planted the first sapling by lighting a two-foot by two-foot pit in the field prepared earlier, planting flowers and sandalwood, breaking coconuts, and filling the pit with pedia. After that, the DFO of North Division, Shri Verma, planted the second sapling and started the cultivation. It is worth mentioning here that for the last 5 years, the government has been providing incentives to the farmers of the district through the “Sarvesai Edible Oil Company” on behalf of the Horticulture Department of the Central Government to cultivate palm oil in their open land. While providing free saplings, waiving transportation charges, the government is also providing agricultural equipment, fertilizers, and pesticides for this cultivation free of cost. Last year, for the first time, 200 acres of saplings were provided to the farmers in the Narla block area for this cultivation and 200 acres were cultivated.
The Indian government used to import palm oil from western countries. After this was stopped for some reason, an edible oil crisis has arisen in India. However, after its production increased in the states of Andhra Pradesh, West Bengal and Maharashtra and the shortage of edible oil was reduced by more than half, the central and state governments are also promoting this palm oil cultivation in Odisha. This palm oil tree starts producing after three years of planting and the fruits are harvested every month for 30 years. It is known to be a profitable crop. It is known that the target is to cultivate this palm oil in 1000 hectares of land in Kalahandi.
