Cultivation of oilseed crops is essential for steady supply of edible oil and to reduce imports. Edible oil is the fifth largest import item and its share in total imports is 3.6 per cent, which was 5.3 per cent a decade back. As a whole, Pakistan spends around Rs50 billion per annum on export of edible oil. The country imports palm oil from Malaysia, Norway, Singapore and South Korea and soybean oil from Malaysia, Argentina, Singapore and Switzerland.

In 2004-05, Pakistan imported palm oil worth $477.7 million against $464 million the previous year. Similarly, $49 million were incurred on the import of soybean oil in the same period. The demand for edible oil is increasing.

The total availability of edible oil in 2003-04 was 2.437 million tons with the share of local production at around 0.740 million tons which was 30.4 per cent of the total national requirements and 1.693 million tons was imported that constituted 69.6 per cent share. Edible oil is either imported or extracted from the imported seed. About 1.333 million tons of edible oil was imported in kind in 2003-04 while 0.114 million ton was extracted from the imported seeds.

Cultivation of edible oil is not popular among the farming community due to a number of reasons. Reported area under sunflower, rapeseed and mustard, sesame, cottonseed and canola in 2004-05 was 7,70,000 acres, 6,12,000 acres, 66,000 acres, 79,79,000 acres and 288,000 acres, respectively.

Production of oilseed of sunflower, rapeseed and mustard, cottonseed and canola was 5, 07,000 tons, 2,15,000 tons, 4,470,000 tons and 1, 73,000 tons, respectively during the same year.

Oil extraction from oilseeds produced during 2004-05 was 17,700 tons, 68,000 tons, 5, 36,000 tons and 6, 1000 tons of sunflower, rapeseed and mustard, cottonseed and canola, respectively. Total oil production was 8, 42,000 tons during 2004-05. To increase the area under oilseeds are difficult because of the ever-increasing demand of cereal grains for human. Small farmers prefer to grow cash crops instead of oilseeds.

The situation calls for exploration of other means to increase the acreage of oilseed crops without sacrificing the area under cash and grain crops. Cultivation of non-traditional crops like sunflower, canola and soybean is imperative to enhance production of oilseed in order to deal with the situation effectively.