Edible oil imports, meanwhile, increase every year with the growing domestic demand and make up more than three per cent of all commodity imports into the country. Oilseed production increased by more than a million tonne during 1998, to touch 5.77 million tonne by the end of the 1998-99 fiscal. Edible oil imports that year grew to 2.37 million tonne from 1.26 million tonne the previous year. Vegetable oil imports between April and October last year was 2.95 million tonne, compared to 1.63 million tonne during the same period in 1998.

The Mustard Research & Promotion Consortium says that the small, round mustard seeds had a high moisture content and spoiled easily in the absence of seed drying facilities in the country. Some of the mustard seeds fell prey to pest and pathogens. At a convention in the capital last week, scientists and agro-experts decided to conduct a survey in mustard growing areas to estimate the extent and cause of the crop losses during and after harvest.

The convention was attended by representatives of the Technology Mission on Oilseeds and Pulses, the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR), NRCRM Bharatpur, the National Dairy Development Board (NDDB), the National Agricultural Co-operative Marketing Federation of India Limited (NAFED), the Indian Agricultural Research Institute (IARI) and the National Council of Applied Economic Research (NCAER). Scientists and academics from the G. B. Pant Agricultural University, the Haryana State Co-operative Supply and Marketing Federation Limited (HAFED), Delhi University also attended the meet. The experts agreed on the need to ``urgently develop proper drying and storage facilities for oilseeds.''

They felt that edible oil producers needed incentives to upgrade their production units, to be able to provide ``nutritionally superior mustard oil'' to consumers at competitive prices. Edible oil prices at home do not compare well with the landed cost of imported oils. The experts also shared the opinion that farmers should be encouraged to grow more oilseeds now that the country had a surfeit of foodgrain. Bringing in more acreage under oilseeds could in future even create exportable surpluses of edible oil, they felt. ``If oilseed farmers are provided adequate minimum support prices and if the post-harvest losses are minimised, the country could gain self-sufficiency in edible oils in less than five years,'' says Mustard Research & Promotion Consortium executive secretary H B Singh in a statement.