Growth and Instability in oilseed production in Rajasthan

Abstract

India is the world's second largest importer of vegetable oil after China, third largest consumer after China and the European Union and fourth largest vegetable oil economy with 15,000 oil mills, 650 solvent extraction plants, 250 vanaspati (hydrogenated oil) units and over 1,000 refineries. The industry is highly fragmented and suffers poor economic scale. The process of consolidation, although seen as inevitable is proceeding at a slow pace. The Indian oil and fats industry employs more than one million people and turnover of oilseed based sector is in excess of US$ 11billion per year, while the import and export trade is worth about US$ 2.5bn per year with annual imports averaging 4.5 million tonnes. Oilseeds sector is greatly disappointed with the outcome of the budget. The oilseed production of the country is stagnant around 25 to 26 million tones and productivity at 950 Kg per hectare. The country is heavily dependent on import of several tonnes of oil per year to fulfill the requirement of population. The present study is an endeavor in this direction to examine the growth in area, production and productivity of oilseeds, to measure the instability in area, production and productivity of oilseeds and to estimate the relative contribution of acreage and yield in growth of oilseeds production in India and Rajasthan. Compound growth rates and instability analysis along with decomposition analysis were done to fulfill these objectives. It was observed that there is a huge variation in area and total production over the period of time. To enhance the productivity of total oilseeds, there is an urgent need of technological intervention.