State Agriculture officials visit oil palm farms in Peren, Niuland

The state Agriculture department officials led by additional director N Jacob Yanthan, Jt. director Z Hukhato Sema and Ronchamo Kikon, SMS, visited oil palm farms under Peren and Niuland districts on February 13, and interacted with the oil palm farmers.

The visits followed the memorandum of understanding (MoU) signed in January 2023 between the state government and Godrej Agrovet Limited (GAVL) for Zone-I (Peren, Chümoukedima, Dimapur, Niuland and Wokha districts) and with Patanjali Foods Ltd. for Zone-II (Mokokchung, Longleng and Mon districts) under National Mission on Edible Oils-Oil Palm (NMEO-OP), for development and area expansion under oil palm cultivation and processing, an update stated.

The main objective of the monitoring visits was to disseminate to the oil palm farmers about the new features under the guidelines of NMEO-OP and the collaborative work that has to be undertaken with the companies engaged.

The officials encouraged and informed the farmers about the huge economic prospect for oil palm cultivation in the state. Such visits will also be made to other oil palm growing districts in the state within the month of March, it stated.

It may be mentioned that the state has targeted eight districts for five years from 2021-22 to 2025-26 for the cultivation of oil palm in a cluster approach in a sustainable manner in the hugely potential foothill areas of the state, without disturbing the natural forest including bio-diversity to fulfill the state’s need to create employment opportunities and generate remunerative livelihood income to the farmers.

“The cultivation of oil palm as a high value crop with higher economic returns per hectare with Viability Gap Funding (VGF) offered by GoI under (NMEO-OP) would therefore be a boon to the subsistence farmers in comparison to growing other oilseed and plantation crops,” it stated.