Take prevention of pests in sunflower plantations
May 30
THE consumption of cooking oil
plays a key role in the consumption types of humans on a daily routine. It is
because cooking oil is important in the daily cooking process of Myanmar
people. Myanmar mostly uses groundnut and sesame oil in making meals.
Farmers cultivate oil crops such
as groundnut, sesame, sunflower, canola, niger and so on to produce cooking
oils for domestic consumption. In addition, businesspersons import palm oil
from Malaysia and Indonesia.
Myanmar places three million
acres of croplands under groundnut plants, 3.5 million acres under sesame and
one million acres under sunflowers. If farmers systematically grow these oil
crops, they can produce 1.369 million tonnes of edible oil per year. Such an
amount will contribute to 200 per cent of the oil sufficiency of the nation.
Among them, sunflower is
primarily grown in Sagaing, Mandalay, Magway and Ayeyawady regions as well as
Shan State. In this regard, extended cultivation of sunflowers needs to take
care of pasts in the farms to have to boost per-acre yield. Farmers should
observe the nature of pests along the term of sunflower plantations. It is
because such kind of pests can cause damage to sunflower plantations,
accounting for 25-45 per cent.
If pesticides and chemicals are
extremely used in combating pests at sunflower plantations, these pests will
have resistance against the pesticides and chemicals, causing water and air
pollution, high costs and content of chemical residues in the crops. Hence,
farmers should use chemicals to combat pests if it is an unavoidable situation.
Farmers can seek technical
assistance from staff from the relevant Department of Agriculture for managing
their oil crop farms. By the suggestions of the agriculturists, they have to
nurture oil crops and prevent pests without fail. Moreover, the farmers
themselves need to observe the nature of various pests which can destroy oil
crops year after year.
As sunflower plants can be
harvested in a shorter time than groundnut and sesame, an emphasis must be
placed on the cultivation of such an oil crop in order to produce cooking oil
for meeting the demand of the domestic market. Moreover, they have to extend
sown acreage of oil crops depending on climatic conditions and costs of inputs.
Only when they extend the cultivation of oil crops will the country reduce the
import volume of palm oil abroad, saving foreign exchange.
Everything is included in the
chain of process. High yield and extended sown acreage of various oil crops
will contribute to domestic consumption and reduction of oil import. Such an
act saves foreign exchange. The saved money can be spent on other development
measures for the nation and the people.
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