Plan to increase production of oilseeds and reduce import of edible oils
22-Aug-2024 05:37 PM
New Delhi. The Central Government is making every effort to increase the production of oilseed crops in the country and reduce the import of edible oils from abroad and is now once again making plans for this and trying to implement them.
It is worth mentioning that only 44 percent of the domestic demand and requirement of edible oils is met by indigenous production, while the remaining 56 percent of the consumption has to be met by imports from abroad. Bridging this huge gap between demand and supply is not an easy task but vigorous efforts must be made for this.
The plan prepared by the Central Agriculture Ministry to increase production mainly includes increasing the average yield rate of oilseeds and its sowing area.
Along with this, rationalizing the import duty on edible oils and controlling imports is also included in the government plan so that indigenous production may be affected by cheap imports from abroad.
The government wants that after harvesting paddy and potato, when the fields become empty, then the farmers should try to cultivate oilseed crops on a large scale. But for this, there is a dire need to provide proper incentives to the farmers.
The government is making arrangements to provide a fixed price to the farmers. Every year, Minimum Support Price (MSP) is announced for Kharif and Rabi oilseed crops, but the purchase of oilseeds from farmers at this support price is very less and hence the producers are forced to sell their produce at a very low price in the open market.
The government intends to purchase as much mustard, soybean and groundnut as possible from the farmers at MSP. The Union Agriculture Minister has already promised this.
The import of edible oils is reaching new record levels, on which a huge amount of money is spent and Indian farmers also suffer losses.
It is necessary to control the import of edible oils. India remains its largest importer in the world, where huge quantities of palm oil, soybean oil and sunflower oil are imported every year.