India's Oil Palm Push: From Early Doubts to a New Yellow Revolution in Edible Oils
A recent analysis traced India's oil palm journey, from early doubts that the crop could grow well in India to a fast expansion today. It described the path as moving from skill, to scale, to speed.
Oil palm is being pushed because India imports most of its cooking oil, and palm oil is the single biggest item in that import bill.
The main government vehicle is the National Mission on Edible Oils – Oil Palm (NMEO-OP), launched in 2021, which gives farmers a guaranteed price and support for planting.
By November 2025, India's total area under oil palm had reached about 6.20 lakh hectares, and crude palm oil output rose from 1.91 lakh tonnes in 2014-15 to 3.80 lakh tonnes in 2024-25.
The push is being described as a new "Yellow Revolution", the name given to India's earlier rise in oilseed production in the late 1980s and early 1990s.
Yellow Revolution: Technology Mission on Oilseeds
The Yellow Revolution is the name given to the sharp rise in India's oilseed production from the late 1980s to the mid-1990s. Oilseeds are crops such as mustard, groundnut and soybean whose seeds are crushed to get cooking oil. The colour yellow comes from the bright yellow flowers of mustard fields. The revolution was driven mainly by the Technology Mission on Oilseeds (TMO), launched in May 1986, and for a few years it made India almost self-sufficient in edible oil.
The oil palm push is being called a new Yellow Revolution because it tries to do for palm oil what the TMO did for oilseeds in the 1980s and 1990s. Its success will be judged by the same test: whether it can cut India's heavy dependence on imported cooking oil.
National Mission on Edible Oils – Oilseeds (NMEO-Oilseeds)
The National Mission on Edible Oils is the government's main programme to make India produce more of its own cooking oil. It has two arms. NMEO-Oil Palm (NMEO-OP) promotes oil palm plantations, while NMEO-Oilseeds promotes annual oilseed crops like mustard, groundnut and soybean. Both aim to cut India's heavy dependence on imported edible oil.
The rapid growth of oil palm area described in the news comes from NMEO-OP's price assurance and planting support. Even so, area and output are still well behind the mission's 2025-26 targets, which is why "speed" is now the focus.
- Oil palm area in India: about 6.20 lakh hectares (November 2025)
- Area covered under NMEO-OP since 2021: about 2.50 lakh hectares
- Potential oil palm area: about 28 lakh hectares
- Crude palm oil output: 1.91 lakh tonnes (2014-15) to 3.80 lakh tonnes (2024-25)
- NMEO-OP outlay: ₹11,040 crore; target 10 lakh hectares by 2025-26; CPO 28 lakh tonnes by 2029-30
- NMEO-Oilseeds outlay: ₹10,103 crore (2024-25 to 2030-31); oilseed target 69.7 million tonnes by 2030-31
- Palm oil imports, 2024-25: about 7.58 million tonnes, out of about 16 million tonnes of total edible oil imports
- Main palm oil sources: Indonesia and Malaysia