SHILLONG, Aug 22: The Centre’s bid to reduce the import burden of palm oil by ramping up oil palm cultivation in the country has raised environmental concerns, especially in the biodiverse Northeast.
Scholars and experts in the state have suggested scrapping the oil palm plan because of its known adverse ecological and socio-economic impact.
According to New Delhi, six north-eastern states – Arunachal Pradesh, Assam, Meghalaya, Mizoram, Nagaland and Tripura – together have a potential area of 218,000 hectares for oil palm plantation but only 20% was being utilised till October 2019.
Of these six states, Meghalaya and Tripura are not interested in pursuing oil palm cultivation in keeping with the Centre’s objective of enhancing domestic production of edible oils.
“We should drop the idea of oil palm cultivation. The state government has already had a bitter experience with the fuel plant jatropha,” said noted environmentalist and columnist, HH Mohrmen.
According to him, the oil palm project will be a disaster for Meghalaya.
“As a monoculture crop, it is going to kill the biodiversity that exists in a given area. Monoculture crops such as broomsticks, betel nut or pine (Casino pinus) also affect the fertility of the soil as well as the water table,” he said.
“When there is only one crop standing, a particular place cannot hold water when it rains,” he pointed out.
But while betel nut, pines and broomstick are indigenous, oil palm is foreign and can bring along with it diseases that can threaten the indigenous plants, Mohrmen warned.
Rekha Shangpliang of NEHU’s Sociology Department, who has done an extensive study on the role of forests in Khasi socio-economic structure, said: “Oil palm has high economic value as edible oil and in cosmetics and soaps. But as a sociologist, I can see its far-reaching socio-economic impact on the local tribal communities who have for long been acquainted with their traditional system of cultivation.”
“Cultivation of a new and alien crop such as oil palm requires large combined areas which may lead to large-scale deforestation. This will disturb the habitat, flora and fauna of this region. It may also pose a danger to the traditional land management system and bring imbalance in the ratio between community and privately-owned land,” she said.
“Over and above this, oil palm is climatically a plant grown more in tropical coastal regions and it is doubtful whether it will sustain in the climate of this region,” Dr Shangpliang said, adding that local farmers may also face a problem in processing and marketing of the produce.
Professor Prasenjit Biswas of NEHU’s Philosophy Department said, “Oil palm cultivation is not very friendly to the kind of sub-tropical forest that Meghalaya has. The state’s pines are already tertiary. In that context, oil palm will be tertiary vegetation, not primary or secondary.”
He said a commercial crop has to be selected in a manner that it does not impact the soil as well as indigenous trees, shrubs and herbs suited to the local conditions.
He also said the government should take note of afforestation programmes that cleaned up the native species of plants in War-Jaintia region. Oil palm can only be considered only in limited areas somewhat insulated from local vegetation, he added.
“Whether the output from the oil palms would be worth the investment is another question,” Prof Biswas said, adding that the business is not yet fully understood.
“The hills of the Northeast may not be conducive for the Rs. 11,000-crore to be pumped in for oil palm cultivation (National Mission on Edible Oils – Oil Palm). It may work in the Brahmaputra and Barak Valleys in Assam or in the plains of Tripura and Manipur, but one has to ask at what cost,” he said.
In conclusion, he said livelihood based on traditional crops cannot be replaced by oil palm, whose sustainability is suspect.
