iGrain India - New Delhi . In an effort to make the country self-reliant in edible oil, the Central Government has set a target of record production of 447 lakh tonnes of oilseeds for the entire season of 2024-25, which includes all three seasons of Kharif, Rabi and Zaid.
Under this, special emphasis will be laid on increasing production in the top producing states and at the same time farmers in low producing provinces will also be encouraged to increase the area under oilseed crops.
It is known that Madhya Pradesh is the largest producer of soybean, Gujarat of groundnut and Rajasthan of mustard in the country.
The Union Agriculture Ministry has set a target of production of total 447 lakh tonnes of oilseeds including 106.45 lakh tonnes of groundnut, 138 lakh tonnes of mustard, 158 lakh tonnes of soybean, 25.30 lakh tonnes of castor, 11.70 lakh tonnes of sesame and 4.51 lakh tonnes of sunflower for the 2024-25 season.
Have done. The production target of groundnut has been set at 90.45 lakh tonnes for the Kharif season. Apart from the above mentioned oilseeds, small amount of linseed, nigerseed, safflower and some other oilseed crops are also produced in the country.
Soybean and groundnut are mainly Kharif oilseed crops. This year, the Agriculture Ministry has set a target of producing 67 lakh tonnes of soybean in Madhya Pradesh, 65 lakh tonnes in Maharashtra and 12 lakh tonnes in Rajasthan.
Due to drought and adverse weather during the 2023-24 season, soybean production declined from 57.89 lakh tonnes to 51.29 lakh tonnes in Madhya Pradesh and from 66.16 lakh tonnes to 52.69 lakh tonnes in Maharashtra.
As far as mustard is concerned, the target of its production has been increased from 58.44 lakh tonnes to 63 lakh tonnes in Rajasthan, from 16.65 lakh tonnes to 19 lakh tonnes in Madhya Pradesh, while in Uttar Pradesh it has been fixed at 16.40 lakh tonnes which will be achieved in 2023-24.
The total estimated production for the season is 1.10 lakh tonnes less than 17.50 lakh tonnes.
The target of production of groundnut has been set at 43 lakh tonnes in Gujarat, 16 lakh tonnes in Rajasthan and 9.60 lakh tonnes in Tamil Nadu (NS:TNNP).