Siddipet: Finance and Health Minister T Harish Rao has said that farmers can harvest oil palm 24 times a year.
Talking to farmers after planting an oil palm sapling at Pitla Shankar’s farm to mark the plantation on three acres of the farm at Banjerupally village in Siddipet Mandal on Monday, the Minister said the future of the farmers, who take up oil palm cultivation, would be bright.
Rao said that farmers could earn up to Rs.30,000 per month from each acre of oil palm. He said wild boars and monkeys would not invade oil palm crops, unlike traditional crops.
To get some additional income, Rao said farmers could also cultivate internal crops. Saying that the farmers in Siddipet had cultivated oil palm on 6,300 acres which includes 3,000 acres this year, so far, the Minister said the district administration was aiming to take the number to 10,000 acres in the next three months.
He said the Kaleshwaram Lift Irrigation Scheme (KLIS) had made Siddipet soil suitable for oil palm cultivation because the district had abundant water now.
Rao has appealed to the farmers to come forward to take up oil palm cultivation in their fields.