The oil palm growers of Mangaluru region, who have been demanding a nursery, are likely to get one.
Addressing a meeting of oil palm growers of Dakshina Kannada and Udupi here on Friday, Padmaraj J. Vardhaman, Assistant General Manager, 3 F Oil Palm Agrotech Pvt. Ltd., which is promoting oil palm in 13 districts of the State, said the nursery will be opened in a month.
It’s likely to come up near Karkala, so that it would be easily accessible for farmers from Dakshina Kannada and Udupi.
He said 426 farmers have taken up the cultivation on 280 hectares in the two districts. The company purchased 335 tonnes of fresh fruit bunches from them till February end in 2017-18. The company intends to promote oil palm in another 500 hectares during 2018-19. The company has completed geotagging of the plantations of all farmers in 13 districts in the State. This would enable the company to monitor the field level activities of its staff in the plantations. Their visit to the plantations to provide technical inputs, harvesting of fresh fruit bunches could also be monitored.
The geotagging works both online and off line.
