Production, varietal improvement programme and seed availability of annual oilseeds in India: Current scenario and future prospects

Oilseeds are important components ofIndian Agriculture. The demand for oilseeds and edible oils would be 61.5 million tonnes and 17.2 million tonnes, respectively, during 2021-22 and the projected supply of oilseeds be only 39.20 million tonnes against the highest ever production of oilseeds in India i.e. 33.42 m t during 2019-20. As the level of self sufficiency is around 40%, there has been a large import of vegetable oils valued at `81,097 crores during 2020-21 to meet the consumption requirement of the country. Therefore, it is imperative to evolve new climate resilient technologies to increase production. Use of high yielding varieties and quality seeds with a contribution of 15%-20% each to the yield, is the first and foremost approach to enhance oilseeds production. The present paper reviews the current scenario of kharif and rabi annual oilseeds, development of varieties, their induction in to the seed chain and seed production during the last decade (2010-11 to 2019-20). Oilseeds area, production and yield showed inconsistent trend during the decade. The highest area (28.05 mha), production (33.42 m t) and yield (1284 kg/ha) were recorded during 2013-14, 2019-20 and 2017-18, respectively. Area under sesame, niger, linseed, sunflower, safflower and castor ubstantially decreased during 2019-20 and consequently the production also decreased as compared to the base year (2010-11). Nevertheless, there was increase in yield/ha of these crops barring soybean. A total of 299 varieties of nine oilseed crops were developed during the last 11 years. This includes 23 bio-fortified varieties having nutritionally superior-edible oil such as high oleic acid in groundnutand safflower, high linoleic acid in linseed, low erucic acid (and concomitant increase in oleic acid) in oil and/or lowglucosinolates in seedmeal in rapeseed-mustard and KITand lipoxygenase free soybean. Seed production chain of oilseeds during 2020-21 consisted of 261 varieties/hybrids comprising 62 of groundnut, 48 of soybean, 64 of rapeseed-mustard, 29 of sesame, 26 of linseed, 9 of niger, 7 of sunflower, 12 of safflower and 4 of castor including 152 varieties released during the last 10 years (up to 2020). There has been a continuous surge in the requirement for seeds of oilseed crops from 2010-11 (57.88 lakh q) until 2018-19 (58.56 lakh q). Seed requirement during 2019-20 was lower (55.61 lakh q) by 3.9% (2.27 lakh q). The highest seed requirement (67.13 lakh q) for seeds was during 2014-15, an increase of about 16.0%. Seed availability during the decade was always higher except for 2014-15 and 2015-16 which recorded 7.7% and 13.6% shortfall, respectively. The seed replacement rate was morethan ideal except for groundnut, castor and sunflower and varietal replacement rate was also high. Bridging the huge yield gap and bringing additional lands in non-traditional areas and/or seasons and utilization of rice fallows are some ofthe options for enhancing oilseeds production. The latter, needs systematic and concerted efforts to identify suitable varieties and develop matching technologies involving time and cost. Efforts should be made, in the first instance, to reduce yield gap to below 20% in the next 3-4 years by facilitating access of farmers to timely availability of various critical inputs including credit, regular and timely technical backstopping and attractive remunerative prices to the crop produce through market interventions. This would lead to gear up additional production of oilseeds up to 9.0 m t in the immediate future.