Guwahati:
The North Eastern Tea Association (NETA) on Thursday urged the tea planters body, the North Eastern Tea Association (NETA) to urge it to expand the National Mission on the NMO -OP scheme for the cultivation of oil palm trees.
Leader’s advisor Bidanand Barkakoti said that on 1 April, the Union Ministry of Agriculture and Farmers Welfare has agreed to expand the NMO-OP scheme for cultivation of oil palm trees on five percent land of Assam tea gardens, in a letter to the Agriculture Director of the Government of Assam.
The central government issued functional guidelines of the NMO-OP scheme in April 2022, which will end in 2025-26, he told the media.
Barkakoti said that Assam’s tea estates cannot avail the scheme as there are some other conditions in land classification and guidelines.
Therefore, NETA appealed to both Central and Assam governments to expand the NMO-OP scheme into tea gardens.
The leader mentioned in his letter that oil palm cultivation requires planting, irrigation, adequate capital investment for maintenance for a non-cutting period of initial four years, etc.
Based on the appeal made by the leader, the Union Ministry of Agriculture and Farmers Welfare has responded positively and has written to the Agriculture Department of the Assam Government to increase support for the cultivation of oil palm trees on five percent of the land of tea gardens.
According to Barkakoti, the leader has done an in-house study and found that tea and oil palm can be cultivated in harmony.
He said, “The study also found that the cultivation of Agar Tree, Oil Palm Tree and other cash crops in five percent of the tea plantation land has become necessary to remove the economic challenges currently faced by the tea industry,” he said.
The Assam government has allowed five percent of the total tea garden land to be used for specific purposes on October 14, 2022, as mentioned in the notification, which includes cash crops.
In addition, the Assam Cabinet approved the notification of the oil palm crop as a cash crop in the state on January 10 this year.
The Government of West Bengal, even in a Gazette notification on 11 February, is allowed to use 15 percent of the tea garden land for specific purposes as mentioned in the notification.
The assistance under NMO-op includes planting materials, management up to management period (4 years), input for intercropling, land withdrawal, bio fencing, drip irrigation, bore well/pump set/water harvesting structure/vermi compost units, crop equipment. There is also a special package for the northeastern states.
The leader advisor said that India is dependent on imports to meet its edible oil requirements and is the largest importer of edible oils in the world. Therefore, to meet the national interest, the NMEO-OP scheme was launched by using the expansion of the oil palm sector and to reduce the import burden on edible oils with the objective of increasing the production of food oilseeds and oils in the country.
The 44 -year -old tea manufacturer association NETA represents 179 tea companies across Assam, Nagaland and Arunachal Pradesh. Collectively, their members contribute about 150 million kilograms of tea annually, about 20 percent of the total production of Assam.
(Except for the headline, the story has not been edited by NDTV employees and is published by a syndicated feed.)
