Focus on edible oil production to boost self-reliance, says Federation of Seed Industry of India

HYDERABAD: Instead of promoting cultivation of a water guzzler like oil palm, the government, Centre and state, should focus on boosting cultivation of indigenous edible oil producing seeds such as mustard, sunflower, cotton seed and groundnut that can also augment farmer incomes through sale of nutritious, high protein oil cakes for livestock, Federation of Seed Industry of India (FSII) director general Ram Kaundinya said.
“We are a protein deficient country. With every tonne of oil production an equal quantity of cake is produced for livestock. If we ramp up oil production we will have the benefit of oil, cake and protein availability in the country in addition to improving farmer incomes,” Ram Kaundinya said.
Pointing to India’s high dependence on imports, Kaundinya said currently edible oils worth over Rs 1 lakh crore are imported to meet the annual consumption of 24 million tonnes as only about 8-9 million tonnes are produced locally.
“We need to focus on increasing our edible oil production otherwise by the end of the decade we will be facing a huge problem,” he said, adding that even in oil palm India needs to be competitive to curb imports from countries such as Malaysia and Indonesia.
“We are not experts in production of palm oil. We need to be competitive otherwise we will end up with a scenario similar to sunflower oil, where oil companies found it cheaper to import from countries like Ukraine and Russia instead of procuring seeds from local farmers as our cost of production was high,” Kaundinya explained.
However, Telangana agriculture department secretary Raghunandan Rao, defended Telangana’s decision to push for cultivation of oil palm, which has gone up from 40,000 acres to 1.35 lakh acres and is set to jump to 3.35 lakh acres next year, as it has a buyback system in place unlike other oil seeds making it a safe and profitable bet for farmers.