A Survey of Status and Prospect of Oil Palm Cultivation in, Arunachal Pradesh, India

Abstract

Oil Palm has been a highly controversial crop around the world. It has been introduced massively in the South-East Asia because of its economic profitability. However, it has also been criticized by various scholars for its negative environmental consequences. India has been the major consumer of palm oil over the years and more than 90% of its need is meet up through imported source. Thus, in order to become self-sufficient, Indian government has been promoting expansion of oil palm cultivation. In the mean time oil palm has been introduced in Arunachal to meet the above target among others. The objective of this article is to analyze the geo-temporal trend of the oil palm cultivation in the study area and analyze the productivity of oil palm by accounting the yield per hectare. Thus, method such as trend analysis and descriptive statistics has been used to analyze the data collected. The data has been collected from both primary and secondary sources. Further, the result of the study suggest that the growth rate of oil palm has been declining ever since its inception. However, the actual growth has been in rise though the rate has declined. Furthermore, the study suggest that the productivity of the oil palm in study area has been much lower than the global average. But, the low productivity in this case is because of more than two-third of the area under oil palm in the study area is still under the juvenile phase of cultivation. Therefore, we conclude that the growth rate of oil palm is expected to be slow but the productivity is expected to increase, with the increase in production as the oil palm cultivation matures over the time. Further the study suggests that increasing yield, maintaining price stability, market access and implementing RSPO standards are the important factors for sustainable oil palm cultivation in Arunachal Pradesh.