Champions A Circular Model For Palm Oil Production
Godrej Agrovet (GAVL) is the largest oil palm processor in India. It follows the circularity model of production to ensure zero waste for landfill and energy efficiency. The company also works directly with more than 9,000 farmers for the entire lifecycle of the crop to ensure sustainable cultivation. Godrej Agrovet has helped develop over 75,000 hectares of plantations across Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, Tamil Nadu, Goa, Maharashtra and Mizoram.
India imports 60 per cent of its edible oil requirements and GAVL aims to meet the rising demand through sustainable domestic production using the PPP (public-private partnership) model. Godrej Agrovet’s Oil Palm Plantation (OPP) project procures fresh fruit bunches (FFB) from farmers, which are then processed in mills to produce palm crude and kernel oil. The company owns six oil mills and a range of products including crude palm oil, crude palm kernel oil and palm kernel cake, stearin, olein and palm fatty acid distillate.
Company sources say that all parts of the palm fruits are utilised in some form or the other in the manufacturing process or in developing alternative products. In the process, the common waste and by-products like palm nut shells, empty fruit bunches and palm fibre are used as boiler fuel, making GAVL self-sufficient in energy. The extra by-products are used to make briquettes which are then used in boilers or sold to external parties. Godrej Agrovet ensures that there is no waste for landfills.
The company says that it has been implementing the circularity model in mills since 2017 and ensuring that every part of the palm fruit is utilised to derive maximum value and maintain a circular model of business. It adhers to global standards in best business practices.
Sustainable cultivation
Company teams work closely with farmers as guides for sustainable cultivation. Godrej Agrovet has built a one-stop solution in the way of Samadhan centres through which farmers access knowledge, tools and solutions for growing oil palm. The company leads in innovation like geo-mapping 90 per cent of smallholders’ plantation areas with remote sensing satellite imagery to look for the possibility of heat stress, availability of water for each tree and productivity of each tree.
It has developed an app or web portal called the Farmer Management System that tracks data from the fields, the cultivation techniques adopted, year-on-year yields and the challenges faced by the farmers. It has installed climate monitoring devices to monitor and forecast factors like minimum and maximum temperature, humidity, soil moisture, rainfall, sunlight etc.
Within their processing mills, GAVL use technology like paddle dryers that make it energy sufficient. To derive value from the sludge left behind, the oil plant uses multi-effective evaporators that remove moisture from it leaving behind a dry powder that farmers use as fertiliser. Godrej Agrovet’s work is aligned with and supports the Government of India’s National Mission on Edible Oils – Oil Palm (NMEO-OP).
Godrej Agrovet richly deserves accolade for the exemplary work it does in palm oil production, sustainable cultivation of oil palm and in its zero-deforestation policy in keeping with Indian laws.
