Oilseed crop farming in Punjab is not going to seed if the increase in the cultivation area is any indication to go by.
The state has witnessed a nearly 23% increase in oilseed area so far and it may go up a bit more. According to the Punjab Agriculture Department’s field reports, nearly 70,000 hectares of the area has already come under Rabi oilseeds against 53,600 hectares last year and 33,000 hectares in 2020-21.
In Punjab, oilseeds like ‘gobhi sarson’, ‘canola sarson’, ‘taramira’, etc. are grown during the Rabi season. With the increase in the area farmers are mostly dependent on private companies for getting seeds of these crops, as neither the Punjab government nor the Punjab Agricultural University (PAU), Ludhiana, has enough seeds to provide farmers according to their current demand. However, the PAU has developed excellent varieties of mustard, ‘canola’ and ‘gobhi sarson’, but these seeds need to be multiplied further to cover a huge area under oilseeds.
Officials say that there is a huge scope of increasing the area under mustard crops, because not only the state but the country is also hugely dependent on imports of edible oils.
We were expecting to increase it to 1.50 lakh hectares this time, but we may not achieve this target,” a senior officer in the department said, adding that farmers are showing good interest in it at the moment but the government should also push it a little more to enhance the area.
According to PAU, the state used to have a huge area under oilseed cultivation in the 1970s, but gradually this area decreased. As of 1974-75, the crops were grown in 1.80 lakh hectares of land which came down to 1.58 lakh hectares in 1987-88 and 1.01 lakh hectares in 1995-96. In 2000-01, this area further came down to 55,000 hectares and it was downhill ever since. But in the past two years, the state has witnessed an increase in the area.
Sources in PAU said that whatever seed was available with the university this year was sold quickly as there was a huge demand from farmers for it which PAU could not meet. And here the government plays a big role by getting multiplied PAU varieties through its agencies like PUNSEED so that farmers can get good varieties of seed at Rs 250 to Rs 300 per kg which the private companies sell at 3-4 times higher rate, the sources added.
Only 1 kg ‘sarson’ seed is required in one acre and at PAU it was available at just Rs 250 per kg, while its production is around 6.36 quintals per acre.
Though the government has announced a minimum support price (MSP) for mustard/rapeseed at Rs 5,450 per quintal, its market rate is quite high and it is fetching Rs 7,000 to Rs 8,000 per quintal.
At the rate of MSP a farmer can get around Rs 35,000, while at the current prevailing market price farmers can fetch up to Rs 50,000 per acre. The input cost of oilseed is quite low as compared to other Rabi season crops like wheat.