NEW DELHI, Aug 2: Despite serious environmental threats, Baba Ramdev’s Patanjali group-led Ruchi Soya plans to start palm oil plantations in Meghalaya and other Northeastern states in a big way.
The oil processor, taken over by the Patanjali group two years ago, has already done field surveys for the oil palm plantations to be set up through contracts that guarantee farmers a buyback by Ruchi Soya’s processing plants to be set up in those states. It has also completed a survey for the high-value cultivation that yields cheap oil.
Ecologically, there is an overwhelming consensus that oil palm is unmitigatedly detrimental. Oil palm expansion is one of the largest drivers of the loss of virgin forest in Southeast Asia. About 55% of the plantations in Indonesia and Malaysia replaced natural forests and the expansion of such plantations has caused a green cover loss in Thailand, Myanmar and Papua New Guinea.
The groundwork has been done and the projects can be started anytime, yoga guru Ramdev told the media on Monday.
India currently has patches of oil palm plantations in Assam, Tripura, West Bengal, the Andamans, Gujarat, Goa, Andhra, Karnataka, Kerala, Tamil Nadu and Maharashtra.
Ramdev indicated that the plantations to be run by farmers would be backed by processing plants set up by Ruchi Soya. Oil has to be processed within 48 hours of the palm being harvested.
India imports most of its oil palm requirements from Southeast Asia despite its home-grown plantations, as edible oils are an essential ingredient in the cuisine of this nation of 140 crore people. Its appetite for all forms of edible oils has been increasing over the years.
Conversion of forests to oil palm plantations also result in substantial losses of rare and endangered tropical species of plants and animals. Oil palm plantations are nowhere comparable to primary (or even degraded) forests in terms of ecosystem services such as carbon sequestration, water security and soil protection, ecologists say.
But India appears poised to join the growing list of countries where oil palm is exacting high socio-economic and environmental costs. The government has begun to seriously view oil palm as important to India’s edible oil security and is aggressively pushing for increased cultivation under the special programme on Oil Palm Area Expansion (OPAE).
Rs 300 crore has been budgeted for OPAE to expand oil palm cultivation in 12 states including those in the Northeast over five years.