Food Sufficiency: Efforts for boosting edible oil production

A workshop on "Farmers' Participatory Seed Production for Oilseeds Crops and Value Chain Development" was held at the Department of Agricultural Research on Saturday through the collaboration between the Ministry of Agriculture, Livestock and Irrigation and the Myanmar Edible Oil Dealers' Association.

Speaking on the occasion, Union Minister U Min Naung emphasized efforts to promote oil crop cultivation and production, alongside the enhancement of oil extraction processes, particularly for vegetable oils such as peanut, sesame and sunflower oil, to meet both domestic demand and export potential. He highlighted the Ministry’s input provision of 300,000 kyats per acre for peanuts, 200,000 kyats for sunflower, and 150,000 kyats for sesame, backed by the economic promotion fund to promote oil crop production.

Myanmar aims to plant 8.39 million acres of oil crops in 2024-2025, expecting a yield of 245.1 million baskets. The Union Minister noted that Myanmar has 2,287 registered oil mills in 2023-2024 fiscal year, with a grinding capacity of over 200,000 tons annually.

He stressed the importance of improving mill quality and increasing raw material production to match capacity. He outlined specific goals to expand oil crop cultivation, ensure self-sufficiency in domestic consumption, use millet as livestock feed, reduce foreign currency expenditure and generate foreign income through edible oil exports, all through collaboration with the Myanmar Edible Oil Dealers' Association, Myanmar Edible Oil Millers' Association, private entrepreneurs and farmers.

The workshop covered topics including the analysis of the oil crop production chain, quality standards for oil crops, and the requirements for both domestic and international exports ongoing research, and quality improvement.

The roundtable discussion focused on boosting edible oil crop production, procurement, development of the milling industry, promoting contract farming and quality standards meeting both local and international market demands.