State Agriculture Minister Kinjarapu Atchannaidu said on Thursday that the welfare of palm oil farmers is the main objective of the government. Minister Atchannaidu inaugurated the new office building of the Director of Horticulture and Sericulture at Vadeshwaram in Guntur district. Subsequently, a meeting of the Oil Palm Price Fixation Committee was held under the Chairmanship of the Minister to decide the principle for calculating the price of palm oil for the oil year 2025-26. In the meeting, various key issues such as Percentage / Oil Extraction Rate(OER), palm nut recovery, etc.

were discussed at length. Speaking on the occasion, the Minister said that Andhra Pradesh ranks first in the country in terms of area, production and productivity of oil palm with about 1.97 lakh farmers cultivating oil palm in 2.49 lakh hectares of land with an average productivity of 19.81 tonnes/hectare. The minister also informed that along with quality seed seedlings imported from countries like Indonesia, Malaysia and Costa Rica, indigenous varieties of saplings are being provided to the farmers and with the development of 30 nurseries and three seed gardens, we are ready for future needs.

He stated that with the implementation of OER of 19.42% for oil 2024-25 year, an average price of Rs. 19,579/MT has been achieved, which is the highest in last ten years and the confidence of farmers has increased. He also mentioned that in 2025-26, 24,535 hectares have been covered under new plantations and so far Rs 181.28 crore has been released and deposited directly into the farmers' accounts.