20/05/2011 (Economic Times) - India, the world's biggest user of cooking oil after China, will assure higher oilseeds prices for farmers, helping them boost output of soyabeans and peanuts and potentially reducing imports of palm oil.

The government may help farmers make more money by ensuring a higher profit on monsoon-sown oilseeds compared with food grains, said Ashok Gulati, chairman of the Commission for Agricultural Costs and Prices.

India is the world's largest buyer of palm oil, which represents more than 80% of its edible-oil imports. A decline in the nation's import demand may pressure benchmark prices in Malaysia that have risen 35% in the past year on higher demand for noodles to fish sticks to candy bars. "The real deficit at present is in oilseeds," Gulati said. "So the question is do we want to pay more to the farmers of Indonesia and Malaysia or should we pay more to our own farmers? I would say oilseeds are main priority this year."