Insight - Indian state bets big on oil palm to cut US$19bil vegoil imports

Growth potential: Workers prepare oil palm seedlings at a nursery in the Khammam district in Telangana. The southern state, which occupies an inland region on the Deccan Plateau, is keen to emerge as India’s main palm oil hub. — Reuters

PULLARAO Daravathu and thousands of fellow farmers from Telangana in India’s south are busy planting oil palms as their home state aims to add more area under the crop within four years than the entire country has in decades.

Telangana is targeting two million additional acres under oil palm cultivation in the next four years, and is going to great lengths to achieve this goal – from building large dams and irrigation canals to importing millions of germinated sprouts.