Nafed told to process entire mustard stock

With a view to ensure edible oil availability, the Centre has asked the National Agricultural Cooperative Marketing Federation (Nafed), government's oilseed procurement agency, to process its entire mustard stock to produce mustard oil.

So far, Nafed has been selling most of its mustard seeds directly while processing only a fraction of them. The federation ended procurement of 2006-07 rabi mustard last month with a purchase of just 0.21 lakh tonnes and currently has a stock of 7 lakh tonnes mustard (including last year's procurement). This stock will be processed to produce about 2.30 lakh tonnes of mustard oil.

"We have floated a tender seeking more processing facilities in Haryana, which has 4 lakh tonnes of our total stocks. Interested parties will be outsourced the tasks of processing our seeds. So far, only Haryana State Cooperative Supply and Marketing Federation (Hafed) has been processing mustard seeds to produce oil," said Alok Ranjan, managing director of the federation.

The federation has also imported 20,000 tonnes edible oil this year, which mostly includes crude palm oil and some soyabean oil.

"The government wants both the public and private sectors to import more edible oil so that domestic prices are maintained at a reasonable level," he said.

On reports that the government is planning to give public sector enterprises subsidy on edible oil imports, Ranjan said his federation has not received any communication on this.

India meets 45 per cent of its edible oil requirements through imports from Malaysia, Indonesia, etc. Edible oil import is expected to surge as the domestic oilseeds crop is small this year.

Farmers in Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh have diverted land from oilseeds to crops such as wheat and chana owing to bullishness in these commodities. This resulted in a decline in oilseeds production.