q) how to develop local oil seed

8/14/2019 Q) How to Develop Local Oil Seed

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Q) How to develop local oil seed production?

DESPITE the fact that Pakistan is overwhelmingly an agrarian economy, it is unable

to produce edible oil sufficient for domestic requirements and substantial amount of

foreign exchange is spent on the import of soya bean and palm oil.

According to the State Bank of Pakistan Annual Report 1999-00, the outflow on this

account during the last 5 years was as follows in million dollars:

1996 856

1997 611.7

1998 767.9

1999 824.1

2000 413.4

The countrys major source of edible oil is cottonseed. Other sources are rapeseed,

sunflower and canola. Oil content in cottonseed is 10 to 12 per cent while it is 32

per cent in rapeseed. Oil content is as high as 37 per cent in sunflower. As such in

spite of the fact that the size of the cotton crop in the country has shown

substantial increase over the last 50 years, the availability of cottonseed oil remains

far below the domestic requirement of the growing population. The requirement for

the next five years is worked out as per table 1.

Thus against the total requirement of edible oil which is estimated at 1.55 million

tons, the domestic production of various types of edible oil is around 620,000 tons

annually and, therefore, the shortfall of about 930,000 tons is met through imports

of palm oil and soya bean oil. Per capital consumption of edible oil is 11 kgs .

Self-sufficiency: In order to save an average outflow of foreign exchange of about

$700 million on account of import of edible oil, there is a strong need to accelerate

efforts in the agriculture sector to steadily increase the local production of oil seeds.

Keeping in mind the oil content in seeds and other factors, a tentative projection of

oil seed crops which may make the country self-sufficient in oil production is shown

in Table II.

Oil content is higher in sunflower seed which indicates an immense potential for a

substantial growth. In 1998-99, sunflower was planted on 172,800 hectares, which

was reduced to 117,360 hectares in 1999-00. This may be due to lack of timely

review of support prices for sunflower. As a result, the farmers have apparently lost

interest in increasing the hectares due to continuous rise in the cost of agriculture

inputs.


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--- imposed 30 per cent cash margin restrictions on the import of edible oils.

levying Sales Tax on import of edible oils

REMEDIAL MEASURES

The country has the potential to find import substitutes of the edible oil, but the efforts made in thisdirection so far, have produced rather poor results.According to official figures, agriculture sector isproducing different types of oil seeds including rapeseed, mustard, soyabean, canola and sunflowers toproduce edible oil locally. The production of edible oil through indigenous resources had taken a goodstart with a production level of 574,000 tonnes in 1991-92. The production level continued to decline sincethen due to unknown reasons. The production of edible oil kept on declining to 482,000 tonnes in 1992-93; 339,000 tonnes in 1993-94. The situation improved to some extent following the establishment ofPakistan Oilseed Development Board and production of edible oil increased to 464,000 tonnes in 1994-

95; 528,000 tonnes in 1995-96 and 538,000 in 1996-97.Currently around 50 local solvent extraction plants are in operation all over the country. In terms of value,these extraction plants are producing local edible oil worth Rs 17 billion, besides producing feeds, forpoultry and dairy sectors.

According to sector-wise break-up of oilseed cultivation in Pakistan, the cultivation of sunflower increased

from 239,000 acres in 1995-96 to 315,000 acres in 1996-97. The area under cultivation for canola alsoincreased from 100,000 acres to 260,000 acres during the same period. The production of edible oil fromsunflower has also shown signs of improvement from 44,000 tonnes to 83,000 tonnes and of canola from16,000 tonnes to 49,000 tonnes during the said period. Presently the area, earmarked for soyabeancultivation, is around 9,000 acres while rapeseed and mustard are being grown in an area of five lakhacres. Rapeseed and mustard producing around 69,000 tonnes of edible oil while contribution bysoyabean is 9,000 tonnes. The size of imports is around 1.8 million tonnes while the total production ofindigenised edible oil is estimated at around 538,000 tonnes which could only increase with dedicatedefforts both by the government quarters and essentially by the growers.


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q) how to develop local oil seed

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