Our Correspondent
Kohima | June 6
Taking serious note on the grievances and plight of the oil palm farmers of Nagaland, the Department of Agriculture has initiated efforts to establish the necessary infrastructures for buy back of FFBs with the previous implementing partners.
In the larger interest of the farming community of the state and the oil palm farmers in particular, the department stated that it decided to engage reputed companies “for our oil palm programmes and that’s how we inked an MoU with the Patanjali Foods Ltd (PFL) through an Expression of Interest for Zone-2 consisting of Mon, Mokochung and Longleng districts on the 31st of January 2023.”
Accordingly, two nursery-one at Tuli and the other at Tizit has been established by PFL.
Nagaland’s Agriculture Director, M. Ben Yanthan laid a prerequisite to the company during the signing of the MoU that they had to buy back “our FFBs of the old plantations which they agreed upon.”
Today, the department stated “we are practically experiencing the fulfillment of the pre-conditions laid by starting the buy back of the FFBs for the first time under Zone -2 from Tizit in Mon districts and this will continue henceforth.”
The first buy back of FFBs of oil palm by Patanjali Foods Ltd (PFL) for the Zone-2 consisting of Mon, Mokochung and Longleng districts was flagged off by Z Hukhato Sema, Joint Director of Agriculture (NMEO-Oil Palm) in the presence of Tapas Kumjar Tripathi, Deputy General Manager of PFL, Mahesh Pathak, State head for PFL, Myanthung Patton, Sub-Divisional Agriculture Officer, Tizit at Agriculture Department farm at Tizit on June 6. It was also informed that the buy-back will be a continuous process.
