Oil palm farmers in deep crisis, seek price hike

PNS|Vijayawada

The oil palm farmers across the State are in a neck-deep crisis and most of the farmers have evaded cultivation due to poor prices of Rs 10,000. The oil palm farmers demand that the State government provide Rs 20,000 per tonne as a remunerative price as the oil palm cultivation is already reduced to 1.60 lakh acres in Andhra Pradesh.

Dr Kranthi Kumar Reddy, general secretary of the National Oil Palm Farmers Association, said that the edible oil import policy was benefitting the corporate, not the consumers and oil palm farmers. He said that with the increase in fertilisers and other input costs the production cost of each tonne of oil palm Fresh Fruit Bunches (FFBs) have increased to Rs 19,000, but the present price received by farmers is only Rs 12,800 per tonne, which reflected the sorry state of oil palm cultivation.

He said that they took the issue to the notice of the union government and the State government seeking to re-impose an import duty of 49 percent on importing edible oils. He stated that the oil palm farmers ran from pillar to post with their demands. They met Chief Minister YS Jagan Mohan Reddy, Union ministers including Narendra Singh Tomar, and Union Government higher officials and got simple relief from imposing nominal import duties.

Dr Reddy said that till 1994, India was self-sufficient in edible oils. After that it was put under the Open General License (OGL) category under the WTO with 65 percent import duties. He recalled that during the NDA government’s term, in 1999 most of the tariff barriers were removed, initiating a process of import dumping and forcing the edible oil seed farmers of India to compete with the corporate forest plantations of Malaysia and Indonesia.

He further recalled that in the year 2020 -21, import duties were 49 percent, and sadly it was zeroed by May 2022. He mentioned that the Crude Palm Oil (CPO) price had fallen from Rs. 1,46,000 per tonne to Rs.72,000, which forced oilseed farmers into despair with zero duty import.

He said that the government issued an order imposing import duties of 6-11 percent on palm oil, which is insufficient to cover even the costs of cultivation in many oilseed crops, and sought the union government to impose 49 percent import duty.