Work Coordination Meeting: Expansion of sunflower and cotton plantations

The Ministry of Agriculture, Livestock and Irrigation held a work coordination meeting on expansion of sunflower and cotton plantations and meeting targeted yield at the ministry on 21st August.

At the meeting, Union Minister U Min Naung stressed the sufficient usage of agricultural lands, increasing per acre yield and meeting targeted yield of ten major crops. He urged attendees to emphasize on meeting the target yield in current Financial Year as it’s failed to meet in previous year due to various circumstances.

He also called for the concerted efforts of the farmers and departmental officials in tackling the challenges due to climate changes and natural disasters. Then, the attendees presented reports on sunflower and cotton plantation expansion, current work implementations and tasks to be carried out to meet targeted yields.

In order to reduce edible oil import volume and to ensure local edible oil sufficiency, expansion of 1.5 million acres sunflower plantation has been implementing since 2022-2023 Financial Year as well as the loan disbursement initiated by State Economic Promotion Fund. And, a total of 3 million acres of sunflower plantations are targeted to expand in 2024-2025 Financial Year.

The meeting also focused on providing necessary technology assistances and inputs to accelerate local cotton finished products production and to grow 700,000 acres of cotton plantations.