Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Monday launched a ₹11,000 crore National Edible Oil Mission-Oil Palm (NMEO-OP) to make India self-reliant in edible oils.

India currently depends on imports for nearly two-thirds of edible oil used in the country. “Palm oil accounts for nearly 55 per cent of edible oil imported by India,” Modi said.

The Prime Minister made this announcement at a virtual event to release the ninth instalment of Pradhan Mantri Kisan Samman Nidhi (PM-KISAN) under which a sum of ₹19,509 crore was disbursed to over 9.75 crore farmers across the country, taking the total amount distributed since the launch of the scheme in February 2019 to ₹1.60-lakh crore.

Also read: Incentivising production of pulses, oilseeds

‘Atmanirbhar Bharat’

“Even though India is self-reliant in rice, wheat and sugar, that is not enough,” Modi said, adding that the country needs to produce sufficient quantities of coarse cereals, pulses and oilseeds so that India can ‘Atmanirbhar Bharat’ – not just in meeting domestic demand for these produce but also in exporting, so that marginalised farmers benefit from this.

“Thousands of crore rupees currently being spent by India in importing edible oil should ideally go to the farmers in the county,” Modi said, highlighting how farmers took up the challenge to increase the production of pulses by 50 per cent in the last six years.

The Prime Minister said the government would ensure the farmers taking up oil palm cultivation would get best quality seeds as well as appropriate technologies so that they would be able to help the country to be ‘self-reliant’ in edible oil production. Similarly, special programmes are being planned to promote oil palm cultivation in North-eastern States as well as Andaman & Nicobar Islands.

Modi meets farmers

Modi also interacted with farmers from different States to know how they are benefiting from schemes launched by the government.

Also read: Palm oil prices increase by more than 82% in 5 years

Among those interacted with him include a woman farmer from Goa who took up mixed farming successfully, a mango farmer from Raigarh district, Maharashtra, who managed to do value addition to his mango produce by setting up a mango ripening chamber, a chief administrator of a farmer producer organisation in Uttar Pradesh which took up cultivation of medicinal plants in a big way, a young farmer from Tehri Garwal in Uttarakhand who did well in mushroom cultivation, a farmer beneficiary of Saffron Park in Jammu and Kashmir, and a woman farmer in Manipur growing organic queen pineapple in her 2 hectares of land.

Talking about saffron, the Prime Minister said NAFED will make sure saffron produced in Jammu and Kashmir will be made available all over the country. He also urged farmers to make use of the ‘Mission Honeybee’ scheme launched by the government and expressed his satisfaction on how India was able to export ₹700 crore worth honey last year because of it.

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