Government reconsiders Oil Palm ban
The government is reconsidering the ban on oil palm cultivation and will shortly present an expert committee’s report to the Cabinet to decide whether the 2021 gazette notification should be revoked.
The Cabinet-appointed committee has submitted recommendations allowing oil palm cultivation under specific conditions, a senior government official disclosed.
It has representatives of the Ministry of Plantation, Central Environmental Authority (CEA), Ministry of Environment, and academic experts; the committee that was formed made this suggestion on condition that cultivation is allowed provided certain criteria are met.
The recommendations are slated for consideration by the Cabinet, which would decide if the gazette 2021, number 2222/13, which completely prohibited oil palm cultivation and ordered a phased uprooting of the plantations already raised, would be revoked.
He said that industry stakeholders have written to President Anura Kumara Dissanayake recently requesting to lift the ban on oil palm cultivation and the import of palm crude oil as it has caused multibillion-rupee losses, destroyed thousands of jobs, and worsened the country’s food and currency crises
The Planters’ Association of Ceylon and other industry bodies have intensified their calls for the ban to be lifted, citing a loss of over US$175 million on edible oil imports between 2021 and 2025 due to the prohibition.
The ban was imposed in April 2021 under former President Gotabaya Rajapaksa, based on several factors, including protests from environmentalists and soil experts focused on potential soil erosion, the drying of natural springs, and broader threats to biodiversity and native species.
The ban directly led to the destruction of seedlings worth Rs. 550 million, while an additional Rs. 23 billion in investments are now at risk.
The industry, which previously provided 5,000 jobs and 21,000 supplementary income sources, was paralysed. Workers who once earned twice as much as in the tea and rubber sectors have had to move to these lower-paying industries, compounding economic hardships.
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