Palm cultivation to be increased

Rasika Somarathna

Sri Lanka intends to lean more on palm oil production instead of the traditional coconut oil in the future to supplement its ever increasing edible oil needs and achieve self-sufficiency in this regard.

Under the instructions of Plantations Industries Minister Mahinda Samarasinghe authorities are planning to increase palm cultivation from 10,000 acres to 50,000 acres within the next five years and thereby increase palm oil production to 100,000 metric tons.

Sri Lanka’s edible oil requirements per annum exceeds 160,000 metric tons. However the country’s largest edible oil - the coconut oil - generates only around 80,000 metric tons per annum, thereby forcing authorities to import the deficit 50 percent.

To import edible oil, Sri Lanka spends Rs 1,400 million annually. With their ambitious drive to increase palm oil production, authorities expect to bridge this gap and achieve self-sufficiency in edible oil requirements.

Also experts feel that promoting palm oil production instead of coconut oil is more productive as a one hectare of palm cultivation yields 3,000 Kg’s of oil in comparison to 800 Kg’s from a hectare of coconut cultivation.

In line several important decisions have been taken by Minister Samarasinghe following a discussion with relevant stakeholders in Lunuwila recently.

As a result, the Minister has decided to import 300,000 hybrid seeds from Indonesia to supplement the requirements of both large and small scale growers.

In addition the Minister has directed officials to establish a separate research unit for the palm oil industry. Awareness programs and other propaganda aimed at encouraging palm growing is in the pipeline, according to the Ministry sources.

Five large scale companies have a total of 10,000 acres of palm cultivation in the country which generates 12,000 metric tons of oil per annum.

The Ministry points out that countries such as Malaysia, Indonesia, Papua New Guinea, Colombia and Nigeria have achieved encouraging results by propagating the growth of palm to produce edible oil.

They point out that while coconut oil only produces two percent of all edible oil requirements in the world the Palm oil supplement is 32 percent.