Agriculture Ministry seeks to boost oilseeds output

Agriculture Ministry seeks to boost oilseeds output

News:

1. The Agriculture Ministry is focussing on boosting oilseeds production over the next four years.

Important Facts:

2. The Ministry has pegged the country’s total vegetable oil requirement at 33.2 million tonnes by 2022 as per the agenda note of National Conference on Agriculture for Rabi Campaign 2018-19.
3. Need for enhancing oilseed production:

• Increasing population and Income levels: The per capita consumption of oilseeds is expected to grow about 22 kg by 2022 from the level of 19 kg per person per annum during 2015-16.
• Increasing import dependence: Domestic production of edible oils has not kept pace with the growing demand, necessitating huge imports of around 70 percent (14 million tonnes) in 2016-17. Also,  edible oil is among the largest items in India’s import basket after crude oil and gold.
• Decrease in area under oilseeds: This is due to their relatively lower profitability against competing crops such as maize, cotton and chickpea under the prevailing crop growing and marketing situations.
• Traditional area of cultivation: Majority of the oilseeds, around 70 per cent are cultivated in the rainfed areas.

4. Measures to boost oilseed production:

• A separate project ‘Oilseeds in Non Traditional Areas’ in consultation with States, targeting a production of 1.5 million tonnes from an area of 1 million hectares has been proposed.
• Introducing different oilseeds crops in different zones and non-traditional areas like sunflower and groundnut during the spring season in the Indo-Gangetic plains and Uttar Pradesh; safflower in Gujarat; mustard in Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka,  soyabean in Jharkhand etc..

Expanding the scheme of ‘Targeting Rice Fallow Areas’ (TRFA)  for cultivation of oilseeds such as soyabean and groundnut in States such as Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, Maharashtra, Gujarat, and the North East and Himalayan States, where large area of rice fallows are available.