How Sustainable is the Total Factor Productivity of Oilseeds in India

Abstract

The increased oilseed production and productivity in India has not helped out our country, in any way, to mitigate its substantial dependence on imports of edible oils. The edible oils are the most dominant item of agricultural imports. It has been accounting for almost half of the total agricultural imports in the recent years. It increased from mere 26 per cent in 1990-91 as per data from Ministry of Agriculture and Co-operation, Government of India. A naive explanation to this, keeping aside the other factors of import liberalisation and low international prices, could be faster increase in demand for edible oils than the increase in its production. Per capita consumption of edible oils in the country increased about seven times from 1.5 kg in 1965-70 to 10.2 kg in 1999-2002 (Dohlman et al., 2003) while the production of oilseeds just tripled during the same period. However, it is complex to answer the next question, which intuitively arises, why doesn’t production match? The answer to this question emanates from the study of sustainability of production and productivity of oilseeds, its technological improvement, profitability, inputs’ growth and their efficient use. All these parameters are interdependent and ultimately decide the level of public and private investment on oilseeds and their production. In the event of rare possibility to augment area, the growth in oilseeds production or of any other crop, for that matter, depends upon growth of inputs and the increased efficiency in input use. The area under six edible oilseed crops, namely, rapeseed and mustard (RSM), groundnut (GNUT), sunflower (SUNF), soybean (SOYA) and safflower (SAFF), which accounts for 80 per cent of the country’s consumption, increased hardly at the rate of 3 per cent in the last two decades ending 2000 (CMIE, 2000). Per hectare production of these crops increased from 580 kg to 880 kg, which is still 50 to 60 per cent lower than the world averages varying from crop to crop,