National Mission on Edible Oils-Oil Palm

Why in news?

• The Union Cabinet has given its approval to launch a new Mission on Oil palm to be known as the National Mission on Edible Oils – Oil Palm (NMEO-OP) as a new Centrally Sponsored Scheme with a special focus on the North east region and the Andaman and Nicobar Islands

About the scheme:

• The National Mission on Edible Oil-Oil Palm (NMEO-OP) is a centrally sponsored scheme, which involves investment of over Rs. 11,000 crore (over a five year period).
• Due to the heavy dependence on imports for edible oils, it is important to make efforts for increasing the domestic production of edible oils in which increasing area and productivity of oil palm plays an important part.
• The scheme aims to raise the domestic production of palm oil by three times to 11 lakh MT by 2025-26.
  • This will involve raising the area under oil palm cultivation to 10 lakh hectares by 2025-26 and 16.7 lakh hectares by 2029-30.
• The special emphasis of the scheme will be in India’s north-eastern states and the Andaman and Nicobar Islands due to the conducive weather conditions in the regions.
• There are two major focus areas of the scheme:
  • (1) The oil palm farmers produce Fresh Fruit Bunches (FFBs) from which oil is extracted by the industry. Presently the prices of these FFBs are linked to the international CPO prices fluctuations.  For the first time, the Government of India will give a price assurance to the oil palm farmers for the FFBs. This will be known as the Viability Price (VP).   This will protect the farmers from the fluctuations of the international CPO  prices and protect him from the volatility.
  • (2) The second major focus of the scheme is to substantially increase the assistance of inputs/interventions

Need for such schemes:

• India is the largest consumer of vegetable oil in the world. Of this, palm oil imports are almost 60% of its total vegetable oil imports.
• In 2016- 2017, 98 percent of total domestic consumption of palm oil is imported from Malaysia and Indonesia. This means India was producing only 2 per cent of its requirement.
• Also, in India, 94.1 per cent of its palm oil is used in food products, especially for cooking purposes. This makes palm oil extremely critical to India’s edible oils economy.

PRACTICE QUESTION

Which of the following statement is /are correct regarding ‘National Mission on Edible Oils-Oil Palm’?

1. It is a centrally sponsored scheme

2. The scheme aims to give a price assurance to the oil palm farmers

3. The scheme involves raising the area under oil palm cultivation

Select the correct answer using the code given below:

(a) 1 and 3 only

(b) 2 and 3 only

(c) 1 and 2 only

(d) 1,2 and 3

Answer