Punjab Agriculture department is taking up a well knitted project costing more than Rs5 billion for the promotion of oilseed crops cultivation like sunflower, canola and sesame across the Punjab.

Official sources told Business Recorder on Sunday that under the plan special attention would be accorded on enhancing the acreage for the promotion of Sunflower, Canola and Sesame crops in the Province. The Punjab government has decided to provide subsidy to the growers of oilseed crops for enhancing acreage. The objectives of the plan were to produce maximum edible oil in the Province for lessening the import to save huge foreign exchange.

At present only 34 percent edible oil is being produced within country while 66 percent was being imported for catering the domestic needs for which government was spending huge foreign exchange on the import of edible oil every year.

The demand of edible oil was increasing rapidly due to the fast increase in population of the country and under the situation extra efforts were being made for cultivating oil seed crops including sunflower for minimizing the import of edible oil. The cultivation of oilseed crops especially sunflower crop could play a vital role in enhancing the production of edible oil because the sunflower seeds had 40 percent oil capacity as compare to other oil seed crops.

Keeping in view the importance of edible crops the Agriculture department was making strenuous efforts to motivating the growers that they should cultivate oilseed crops in their fields and get maximum economic benefits and help in enhancing the production of edible oil sources said.

Copyright Business Recorder, 2019