Oil Palm Farmers Oppose Cut in Palm Oil Import Duty
Farmer leaders said the gap between crude and refined palm oil duties, which stood at 7.5 per cent in 2019-20, had now widened to 24.75 per cent.
Vijayawada:The oil palm farmers’ associations in Andhra Pradesh, Telangana and Karnataka have opposed the Centre’s decision to reduce the basic import duty on palm oil from 10 per cent to 5 per cent, saying the move would affect domestic growers.
The National Oil Palm Farmers Association (NOFA) and the state oil palm farmers welfare associations of the three states said this decision would expose lakhs of farmers to stiff competition from imported palm oil.
NOFA general secretary Kranthi Kumar Reddy and the AP oil palm farmers welfare association president Bobba Veera Raghav Rao said the government’s policy was tilted towards the refining industry while the concerns of cultivators had not been addressed.
During a recent visit of the Union agriculture minister Shivaraj Singh Chouhan to Hyderabad, the agriculture ministers of AP and Telangana had urged the Centre to increase the import duty and raise the minimum support price to `25,000 per tonne of fresh fruit bunches (FFBs). They cited the rise in cultivation costs. The farmers’ associations said the duty reduction had affected the oil palm and other oilseed growers.
Farmer leaders said the gap between crude and refined palm oil duties, which stood at 7.5 per cent in 2019-20, had now widened to 24.75 per cent.
“This bias towards refiners is unacceptable. If consumer interests are to be protected, the gap must be narrowed to 5 per cent, as it was a decade ago,” they said.
Kranthi Reddy and Veera Raghav Rao pleaded that the government restore the import duty to the 2021-22 level of 49 per cent to safeguard the interests of domestic producers.
They criticised the commerce ministry for fixing duty rates without consulting the agriculture ministry, despite the impact on farmers.