3F Oil Palm will invest ₹550 crore on grooming oil palm ecosystem in Andhra Pradesh. The company, which signed a memorandum of understanding with the Andhra Pradesh Government, will invest the amount over the next five years in developing nurseries, expansion of its plantation area, fresh fruit bunch collection and handling and on setting up oil palm processing facility.
“We have been allotted an additional 24 mandals (taluks) in the five districts of Tirupati, Chittoor, Guntur, Nandyal and Krishna. It has a potential for the growth of plantation on over one lakh hectares,” a top company official said in a statement on Thursday.
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He said the company has already acquired 75 acres in Ayyavaram village in Nallajerla mandal for setting up its greenfield integrated oil palm processing complex. It would invest ₹50 crore to develop the complex with a processing refining capacity of 400 tonnes a day and a 6-MW power project.
The MoU was signed by Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister of Andhra Pradesh Y S Jagan Mohan Reddy and 3F Oil Palm Chief Executive Officer and Managing Director Sanjay Goenka.
3F Oil Palm, the first company to commence oil palm operations in the State, and has developed more than 25,000 hectares of the edible oil crop plantation, covering a network of over 50,000 farming families.
Increases income
“Palm oil cultivation in Andhra Pradesh stands as a beacon of economic empowerment, contributing over 85 per cent of India’s production. This sector not only fuels GDP but also increases the incomes of farmers. We are confident that the new project that we have announced today will revolutionise the oil palm cultivation landscape of the State,” Sanjay Goenka, Managing Director and CEO, 3F Oil Palm, said.
“Our investment of ₹550 crore not only signifies our confidence in the potential of the region but also our commitment to sustainable and inclusive development,” he said.
3F Oil Palm currently operates in Karnataka, Assam, Chhattisgarh, Gujarat and Arunachal Pradesh with a cultivation area spread over more than 55,000 hectares and five processing units.
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The company has two operational nurseries in the State and is on track to set up three more during the current financial year. The five nurseries can generate 15 lakh saplings a year and will be enough to cover 10,000 hectares of area annually.
The company will be investing ₹40 crore a year on the development of nurseries over the next five years, aggregating to ₹200 crore.
The company, which has a workforce of 100 agriculture graduates to support its crop development activities, will hire 200 more experts by the end of 2023-24.
The number of collection centres would go up to 55 from the present 30 centres. “We will invest ₹2 crore on setting up each centre. We will also invest ₹50 crore for FFB collection and handling activities,” he said.