After witnessing green and white revolutions in the past century, India is on the cusp of the Yellow revolution in the farm sector, this time in oilseed production. The revolution will be led by Mustard, which may soon be crowned as the country’s top-grown oilseed.
This was the outcome of discussions held by the edible oil industry veterans and eminent government dignitaries in a Webinar organized by the Solvent Extractors’ Association of India.
SEA has been consciously working to reduce India’s import dependence on edible oils by raising domestic oilseed output. For this purpose, SEA has launched the Mustard Mission by which plans to raise mustard production to 20 million tonnes by 2025. This can be achieved by improved farm practices, deployment of the right technology, quality seeds, and other input management, said Atul Chaturvedi, President SEA.
India’s mustard production in the current marketing year that started in October is set to comfortably top between 8.5 to 9 million tonnes, a record high. Record high prices are likely to further incentivize farmers to cultivate mustard in a big way in the coming years, which will help the country to achieve the target of 20 million tonnes in the next five years. This will make mustard India’s top-grown oilseed in the years to come, said Vijay Data, Chairman, SEA Rape- Mustard Promotion Council.
Results of Model Mustard Farms developed by SEA jointly with Solidaridad in Rajasthan since 2019 showed a 49% increase in productivity with the use of better farm practices, better seeds, technology. This makes mustard the preferred choice to raise India’s oilseed production.