Oil Palm for Edible Oil Security in India

India harvests about 30 million tonnes of oilseeds against the world production of more than 250 million tonnes per annum. Many varieties of oils seeds along with tree origin oilseeds are cultivated in India. Although India is a major producer of oilseeds, a substantial portion of our requirement of edible oil is met through import of oil palm from Indonesia and Malaysia. It is, therefore, necessary to exploit domestic resources to maximize production to ensure edible oil security for the country. Oil palm is comparatively a new crop in India and is the highest vegetable oil yielding perennial crop. Therefore, there is an urgent need to intensify efforts for area expansion under oil palm to enhance oil palm production in the country. The Government of India promotes oil palm cultivation in certain regions of the country, so as to help the country to become self-sufficient in edible oil production. There is unique private–public partnership model which encourages farmers to take up oil palm cultivation. At present, the programme is being implemented in 12 states, namely Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Tamil Nadu, Mizoram, Odisha, Kerala, Telangana, Chhattisgarh, Gujarat, Arunachal Pradesh, Nagaland and Assam. This paper makes a field-level assessment of oil palm production by the selected farmers in Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh and Tamil Nadu. The study provides comparison of productivity, cost and profitability among the oil palm-growing farmers across three major oil palm growing states. The study also provides a snapshot of subsidy provisions made by the state governments. The paper provides policy suggestions on how to further encourage area expansion under oil palm.