Boosting Oilseed Production is Essential

26-Jul-2025 12:03 PM

India remains the largest importer of edible oils in the world because the domestic production is not sufficient to meet the domestic demand and requirement.

Theoretically, India is the fifth largest producer of oilseed oil in the world after America, Brazil, Argentina and China, but in practice, the production of edible oils there is so less than the domestic demand and consumption that the country is forced to import 150-160 lakh tonnes per year from abroad, which costs foreign currency worth billions of rupees.

Edible oils are imported mainly from countries like Indonesia, Malaysia, Argentina, Brazil, Russia and Ukraine. The domestic demand and consumption of edible oils is increasing rapidly year after year because on one hand the population and per capita income of the country is continuously increasing and secondly, due to increasing urbanization, there has been less change in the food style of the people.

Due to the rapidly increasing dependence on import of edible oils from abroad, not only the Indian market is being badly affected but Indian farmers also have to struggle hard to get a profitable price for oilseeds. Often, taking advantage of India's compulsion, exporting countries arbitrarily increase the price of their edible oil, which increases the pressure on the Indian economy.

At present, while on one hand there is an environment of decline or stability in the prices of most food products, on the other hand, a huge increase and strength is being seen in the price of edible oil. Within the last one year, the price of edible oils has increased by 20 to 30 percent and there is still no possibility of softening in it.

The government first increased the import duty on edible oils and later reduced the customs duty on crude category oils. Prices are expected to remain high in the global market in the future as the mandatory rule of using 40 percent palm oil in the production of biofuel has been implemented in Indonesia and the US policy will also help in raising the prices.

There should be a strong effort to make India self-sufficient in edible oils and for this, increasing the domestic production of oilseeds is the only solution. To increase production, there is a need to increase the average yield rate of oilseeds substantially.