The market price of rapeseed and mustard, major Indian rabi oilseeds, has been volatile in the past few marketing seasons, taking cues from the global trade. In its Rabi crops’ price policy for marketing season 2024-25, the CACP has mentioned how in the rabi marketing seasons (RMS) 2019-20 and 2020-21, the rates of these two items had showed an upward trend but remained below the MSP (minimum support price). The commission said: “During RMS 2021-22, the market price had an upward trend and stayed above the MSP. RMS 2021-22 brought a steep price surge due to a rise in the global prices of vegetable oils and higher household demand for rapeseed and mustard oil. During RMS 2022-23, the market prices remained stable and well above the MSP.”
However, in RMS 2023-24, the market prices of rapeseed and mustard have dipped below the MSP and hit a declining trend driven by a higher domestic production and a significant drop in the world prices of vegetable oils. The CACP claimed that even though India’s oilseed production had increased over the years, the country still relied heavily on imports to meet 60% of country’s requirement of edible oils. The country’s per capita edible oil consumption is 19 kilograms a year.
The country’s edible oil import increased from 104.7 lakh tonnes (worth Rs 56.8 thousand crore) in the year 2013-14 to 156.4 lakh tonnes (worth Rs 68.7 thousand crore) in the year 2015-16. From the year 2018-19, the Indian edible oil imports hit a downward trend to reach 135.4 lakh tonnes in the year 2020-21. The CACP mentioned in the rabi price policy for 2024-25 that: “However, imports increased over the last two years to reach a record high of 157.5 lakh tonnes in the year 2022-23.
On the other hand, the edible oil import bill of Rs 82.1 thousand crore in 2020-21 shot up to Rs 141.5 thousand crore in the year 2021-22, an increase of 72.3%. The import bill of edible oils reached an all-time high of Rs 167.4 thousand crore in the year 2022-23 because of global price rise since the beginning of 2020.”
The CACP claimed to have procured 7.2 lakh tonnes of mustard seed at the national level in RMS 2023-24. It said: “Haryana, Madhya Pradesh, and Rajasthan procured maximum mustard seed in the current marketing season. Nearly 3.1 lakh farmers benefitted from this mustard seed procurement. There was no procurement of groundnut, safflower, and sesamum seed in RMS 2023-24.”