Yunnan Sets out to Promote Vegetable Oil Industry

Yunnan province plans to increase its output value of woody vegoil plants to 100 billion yuan ($16.13 billion) by 2020, to transform vegetable oil into the province's emerging pillar industry.

Statistics from the provincial Agriculture Bureau show that Yunnan had 3.13 million hectares of oil plants in 2014, which yielded 830,000 tons of produce valued at 2.48 billion yuan.

Among all the macadamia nuts and walnuts produced in China, Yunnan province ranks first in terms of the size of planting area, yield and output value. Yunnan had 2.73 million hectares of walnut plantation areas in 2014, which produced 770,000 tons. 25,000 tons of oil-tea camellia has also been harvested from 233,333 hectares of plantation areas and 8000 tons macadamia nuts have been harvested from 73,333 hectares of land.

Along with high yields, the province also has many processing enterprises specializing in oil plant fruits. It has in excess of 500 enterprises engaging in the processing and sale of walnuts, making products such as walnut seed, oil, juice and art works crafted from nut shells.