Plan afoot to increase oilseeds and pulses’ productivity: Agri Min

Outlining the thrust of his ministry for increasing the productivity of oilseeds and pulses to achieve self sufficiency, Agriculture Minister Radha Mohan Singh said that Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR) and the Agriculture Ministry will work on a two-pronged approach to increase production through area expansion to meet pulse hortage.

Singh said that the ICAR is having research programmes for nine annual oilseeds crops at four commodity based research institutes. Pointing out about technological breakthrough in oilseeds, Singh said that there has been a technological breakthrough in oilseeds and a number of climate resilient high yielding varieties/hybrids of oilseeds has been notified for cultivation and increasing the productivity.

He said, “India has a number of oil yielding species of plant origin which include the nine annuals, two perennials (oil palm and coconut) and some minor oil bearing species of forest and tree origin. Among the nine annual oilseed crops, groundnut, rapeseed-mustard, soybean, sunflower, sesame, niger and safflower are used for edible purpose and castor and linseed are the non-edible vegetable oil.”