The Indian Vegetable Oil Producers’ Association (IVPA) has called for the need to give thrust to the expansion of area under oil palm cultivation and shifting to oilseeds such as groundnut and soyabean for India to become self-sufficient in vegetable oil production.

In a presentation at “Globoil International 2022” in Dubai on Wednesday, Sudhakar Desai, President of IVPA, said India has around two million hectares of potential area for oil palm cultivation. India could get 3-4 million tonnes (mt) of oil in the long term, even with 2-4 tonnes per hectare of crude palm oil (CPO) yield.

Thus there is a need to give thrust to the expansion of area under palm oil cultivation, he said.

Suggesting the need to restrict the import of refined palmolein, he said the focus should be on ‘Make in India” rather than importing it.

He also stressed the need to shift the Indian oilseed acreages towards strategic crops such as groundnut, mustard, sunflower, soyabean and rice bran oil in that order. The expansion of oilseed acreages could be achieved by shifting from wheat and rice and by focusing on rice fallow lands.

Around 60-70 lakh acres is required for this purpose.

GM crops

He said the country could adopt GM crop technology with a focus on mustard, soyabean and other minor oilseed crops. India can focus strategically on meal exports, especially soya and rapeseed, after meeting the domestic demand, he said.

Desai said India can reduce the dependency on vegetable oil imports to 35-40 per cent of the country’s total demand from the existing level of 60-65 per cent in six-seven years through the mission on oilseeds.

Indonesia ban

He said the ban on the import of palm oil will have to be be lifted this month.

According to him, Indonesia has about 5 mt of palm oil stocks. There will be monthly production of 3.5-4 mt. The Indonesian domestic consumption will be around 6.5 lakh tonnes (lt) and biodiesel consumption at around 7 lt. He said storage in Indonesia, which includes shore tank, factories and floating barges, etc., will be around 8 mt.

He said the March-end palm oil carry-out in Malaysia was 1.47 mt, and May-end will get tight again due to the Indonesian ban.

Stating that palm oil is no longer a cheaper option for India, he said domestic oils, soyabean oil will gain market share from palm oil. However, the domestic oilseed prices are much above the minimum support price now.

Sunflower oil imports to India is only about 1 litre per month now due to the Russia-Ukraine war as against 2-2.5 litres per month earlier.

Import projection

He projected the total vegetable oil imports at 12.53 mt during the year 2021-22 (November-October) against 14 mt in 2020-21. This included 3.62 mt (3.13 mt) of soyabean oil, 1.50 mt (1.96 mt) of sunflower oil, and 7.3 mt (8.83 mt) of palm oil.

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