David (name changed) is one of the few Naga farmers who actually works his farm, where he grows oil palm. Most other landowners appoint “caretakers” to look over their land. David is also a part-time social worker and a grassroots politician. On a hot July afternoon, I reached David’s farm with his youngest son, just as they—a group of six—were finishing their lunch. Sitting in the shade of a big palm tree, two women busied themselves rolling the bright green banana leaves on which they just had their meals. “Ayiseh nah?” the older woman asked (a common gesture of welcome in Nagaland, literally meaning “You have come?”). “Hoi (yes),” I responded.

I study the politics of the edible oil economy in India. Since 2022, I have been carrying out intermittent ethnographic fieldwork in Nagaland, exploring the ways in which oil palm expansion is pursued in Northeast India. Last summer, I was back in Nagaland for a longer stretch of fieldwork that included an internship with TCI.

Leaving behind the resting team of workers after their meals, David took me on a tour of his plantation, one of the larger holdings in Nagaland. As we walked around his property, he continually cleaned the shrubs with his Naga dao (machete). “Sabi (see), only last week I hired laborers to clean the plantation and now it is all jungly (bushy).” David wanted me to take note of the arduous labor that goes into maintaining the plantation. I offered him an expression of agreement even as I scribbled my observations in my notebook. He then spoke of his displeasure with the Department of Agriculture, and his disappointment with how his investment in oil palm production has played out.

India’s oilseed struggle

After independence, India sought various strategies to achieve self-sufficiency in food—first in staple, and later in edible oil production. The government promoted the cultivation of oilseeds, including through establishment of cooperative oil mills. However, despite these efforts, production did not keep pace with the rising domestic consumption demands. By the 1980s, India faced a severe edible oil shortage, leading to a heavy reliance on imports.

In response, the government launched a scheme called the Technology Mission on Oilseeds (TMO) in 1986 to increase domestic oilseed production and reduce import dependency. TMO focused on improving agricultural practices, providing better seeds, and supporting oilseed farmers. One of the key factors responsible for the failure of TMO was the competition from cheaper imports. Following India’s economic liberalization in the 1990s, edible oil imports surged, particularly palm oil, because of tariff reductions.

Today, despite being a major oilseed grower, India is also the world’s largest edible oil importer. To address this, the government launched the National Mission on Oilseeds and Oil Palm during the financial year 2014–2015. This scheme, which was later revamped and rebranded as National Mission for Edible Oil-Oil Palm in 2021, intends to expand oil palm cultivation in India from 370,000 to 1 million hectares by 2025, via financial, technical and infrastructural support. Funding for the program is shared by the central and state governments, with the central government providing 60%. In northeastern states, like Nagaland, the national government provides 90% of funding.

In light of the national policy, Nagaland started oil palm cultivation in 2015–16, after signing a memorandum of understanding (MOU) with Shivasais Oil Palm Private Limited in 2014. However, the MOU fell through. According to state government officials, the company failed to establish collection centers and purchase Fresh Fruit Bunches (FFBs) before setting up an oil palm mill. Shivasais contends that the state did not do enough to promote oil palm, and it was too little for them to do anything. The state has now entered into a new MOU with two leading agribusinesses: Godrej Agrovet Ltd and Patanjali.

High costs and low prices

When David first heard about oil palm in 2018, the “Agri manu (Department of Agriculture people)” told him that the demand for oil palm is very high in India, and that one kilogram could easily fetch as much as 200 to 250 rupees. If he did plant oil palm on his six hectares land, he was told, he would easily earn a profit of 5–6 lakhs after four years or so. Yet, it took at least seven years for him to be able to sell his FFBs. Since the buyback started in 2023, he has been able to sell five harvests, but only at 10 rupees per kilogram for the first three harvests, and 13 rupees per kilogram for the next two harvests; this gave him a little over 70,000 rupees. All of this, he dismayed, was after so much caring, tending, hoping and waiting for many years.

David told me that he spends about a lakh per year maintaining his field. He was disappointed at the buyback rate, which is far too low for farmers to sustain. This rate, he understood, was a market rate determined by global supply and demand—an explanation that was also offered to me by Godrej and Department of Agriculture officials. According to them, this was mostly a problem of low harvests, a situation that ensued because the farmers were not “doing it right.” “We have been trying to collaboratively resolve this issue,” a Godrej official told me.

Department of Agriculture officials told me that they are working on Viability Gap Funding, a scheme that would provide farmers with a guaranteed price for their FFBs. Nevertheless, oil palm is not an easy crop to switch. Planting it costs David a lot of money, labor and time. Given these investments, it is not an easy decision for him to move to another crop, not least because of the additional labor and money he would need to spend. David’s predicament is similar to many farmers in Nagaland who I met and spent time with.

Since 2023, there has been a new sustained effort to promote oil palm across the state. Meanwhile, farmers like David are weighing the cost and benefits of taking up oil palm primarily through FFB prices, which they say might not be justified for what they incur as an expenditure. 

Roderick Wijunamai is a PhD candidate in anthropology at Cornell University. He was TCI summer intern in 2024.

Featured image: Oil palm trees on a plantation in Nagaland, India. (Photo by Roderick Wijunamai)