Centre allows 5% tea estate land in state for oil palm cultivation

Guwahati, Apr 6: Decks have been cleared for the cultivation of oil palm in the state's tea estates, which will now be able to avail schemes under the National Mission on Edible Oils – Oil Palm (NMEO-OP) for the cultivation of oil palm trees.

This comes following the Union Ministry of Agriculture & Farmers Welfare's approval, vide its letter dated April 1, 2025, to the Director of Agriculture, Govt of Assam, to extend the NMEO-OP for cultivating oil palm trees in 5 percent land of tea gardens of the state.

"Since the support under NMEO-OP is per hectare for cultivation of oil palm, in case of utilising up to 5% tea estate land, the same support can be extended to the landowner/estate for every 143 oil palm trees (the expected number per hectare). The Government of Assam should proceed with this, using the number of trees expected in one hectare as a unit for assistance," the Union Ministry of Agriculture & Farmers Welfare's letter stated.

The North Eastern Tea Association (NETA), in its letter dated February 4, 2025, had appealed to both the Central and the State governments to extend the NMEO-OP scheme to tea estates.

The Centre had issued NMEO-OP operational guidelines in April 2022 for availing assistance, which will end in 2025-26. But tea estates of Assam could not avail the scheme due to land classification and certain other conditions in the guidelines.

"Therefore, NETA appealed to the Centre and also to the Assam government to extend the NMEO-OP scheme to the tea gardens. NETA, in its letter, mentioned that oil palm cultivation requires substantial capital investment for planting, irrigation, maintenance for the non-harvesting period of the initial four years, etc. Based on the appeal made by NETA, the Centre responded positively and has written to the Assam government to extend the support for cultivation of oil palm trees in 5 per cent land of tea gardens," Bidyananda Barkakoty, adviser to NETA, told The Assam Tribune.

Earlier, NETA had done an in-house study and found that tea and oil palm can be cultivated in harmony without disruption.

"The study also found that cultivation of agar tree, oil palm tree, and other cash crops in the 5% of tea garden land has become essential to overcome the economic challenges currently faced by the tea industry," he added.

The Government of Assam, vide a gazette notification dated October 14, 2022, had allowed 5 per cent of total tea garden land to be used for specific purposes as mentioned in the notification, which includes cash crops. Also, recently the Assam Cabinet dated January 10, 2025, had approved the notification of the oil palm crop as a cash crop in Assam. The Government of West Bengal, vide a gazette notification dated February 11, 2025, has allowed 15 per cent of tea garden land to be used for specific purposes as mentioned in the notification.

The assistance under NMEO-OP includes planting material, management up to the gestation period (four years), inputs for intercropping, land clearance, biofencing, drip irrigation, bore wells/pump sets/water harvesting structures/vermicompost units, harvesting tools, etc. There is also a special package for northeastern states.

India is dependent on imports to meet its edible oil requirements and is the largest importer of edible oils in the world. Therefore, to fulfil the national interest, NMEO-OP was launched despite strong opposition from environmentalists over the adverse effects of oil palm cultivation – with the aim to enhance edible oilseeds production and oils availability in the country by harnessing oil palm area expansion and to reduce the import burden on edible oils.