Agriculture Minister Tummala Nageswara Rao met the officials in Hyderabad on Thursday. | Photo credit: By arrangement
Agriculture Minister Tummala Nageswara Rao has directed authorities to experimentally use automated drip systems in oil palm cultivation as part of farm mechanization for plantation crops.
In a meeting with the Ministry of Agriculture on Thursday, representatives of TG Oilfed, TG Markfed and TG Seed Development Corporation told them to cancel the oil palm zone allocated to companies in districts where the extent of oil palm has not increased on expected lines and allocate them to other companies that are interested.
The Minister reminded them that the palm zones allotted to the companies in Karimnagar, Asifabad, Warangal and Hanmakonda districts have already been canceled and allotted to Oilfed. In the event that even Oilfed fails to increase the extent of oil palm in these districts, the zones allocated to it will be canceled as the government has focused on increasing the extent.
He directed the CEO of Oilfed to employ staff through the outsourcing method if necessary to increase the scale of oil palm. He also wanted the authorities to incorporate farm implements required for oil palm cultivation as part of the farm mechanization scheme to reduce the cost of cultivation.
Further, the minister told the Oilfed officials to take steps to produce by-products from the waste generated during the processing of oil palm bunches into palm oil. He asked them to speed up work on oil palm processing plants being developed at Kallurugud and Beechupalli. He mandated the agriculture authorities to supply biofertilizers like VAM, magnesium and sulfur needed to increase yield with 50% subsidy.
He noted that he has written to Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Union Finance, Agriculture and Commerce Ministers Nirmala Sitharaman, Shivraj Singh Chauhan and Piyush Goyal, respectively, to increase the import duty on palm oil from 16.5% to 44% to make it economically beneficial for farmers.
The minister told the Markfed officials to call for tenders to sell the purchased maize and adopt modern methods of procurement, storage and seed varieties keeping in view the changing technologies. He wanted Markfed to prepare plans to prevent the organization from making losses when buying crops as part of market intervention programmes.
Director Agriculture B. Gopi, Chairman Seed Development Corporation S. Anvesh Reddy, Oilfed Chairman J. Raghava Reddy, Warehousing Corporation Chairman R. Nageswara Rao, MD Oilfed and Seed Development Corporation Sk. Yasmeen Basha and others participated.
Published – 22 Jan 2026 19:47 IST
