The Ministry of Agriculture has adopted a three-year action plan to reduce the country's dependence on edible oil imports. According to the plan, 1 million tons of oil will be produced locally in the next 2024-25 financial year without reducing the production of paddy, which is 40 percent of the demand. As a result, it will be possible to save about 10 thousand crore rupees in oil imports.
Agriculture Minister and Awami League presidium member Dr Md Abdur Razzaque said these things during a meeting in his ministry on Tuesday.
The minister said the country has to import about 90 per cent of its edible oil demand. This year, there is a crisis in the country with edible oil. Oil has to be imported from abroad at a much higher price. On the one hand, consumers are suffering, on the other hand, a lot of foreign currency is going abroad. Foreign exchange reserves are also under pressure. In this context, we have adopted a three-year action plan to reduce the dependence on edible oil imports as directed by Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina.
The minister further said that the main problem of oilseed crop production is that farmers do not want to cultivate it as it is less profitable than other crops including paddy.
Besides, we do not want to reduce rice production. Therefore, we have adopted an action plan to produce 1 million tons of oil locally within the next 3 years, which is 40 percent of the demand. If this plan is implemented properly, this goal can be achieved. He said, "We have already achieved success in onion production by adopting action plan." I have reduced the import dependence a lot. We will also be successful in producing edible oil like onion.
According to the action plan, the cultivation of oilseeds including mustard, sesame, almond, soybean, sunflower will be tripled in the 2024-25 financial year and it will be increased from the present 6 lakh hectare land to 23 lakh 60 thousand hectare. Production of oilseeds will increase from the current 12 lakh tonnes to 29 lakh tonnes and oil production from the current 3 lakh tonnes to 10 lakh tonnes.
The minister said that 3 issues are being given importance in achieving this target. He said that the first is to increase productivity, instead of the local varieties including Tori-6, Maghi, Dupi which are currently being planted, high yielding mustard varieties Bina-4, 9, Bari 14, 16 etc. will be spread. Secondly, uncultivated pastures, coastal saline, haors and hilly areas will be brought under oil crop cultivation. Third, mustard cultivation as an additional crop between transplanted aman and boro by cultivating short-lived rice in new cropping pattern. In this format, there is an opportunity to increase the cultivation of mustard in about 5 lakh hectares of land.
It was informed at the meeting that the demand for edible oil in the country is around 24 lakh tonnes per annum. Of this, only 3 lakh tonnes of mustard, sesame and sunflower are produced locally, which is 12 percent of the demand. The rest of the edible oil has to be imported. In the fiscal year 2020-21, about Tk 16,000 crore was spent on oil imports and about Tk 20,000 crore was spent in the first 10 months of this year.
Secretary of the Ministry of Agriculture Md Sayedul Islam, senior officials of the ministry and heads of agencies were present at the meeting.
