Mustard Research and Promotion Consortium (MRPC) has asked the Centre to immediately ban exports of mustard to Nepal and allow imports of mustard seed under the open general licence (OGL) at a minimum import duty of five per cent only.

Vivek Puri, promoter of “P” Mark mustard oil, said, “India exports around 500 tonnes of mustard per day to Nepal. This should be immediately banned as the country is itself facing a shortage of the commodity.” The mustard processing sector in India was in the cottage and small scale sector and processors were facing problems because of shortage of mustard seed. Puri said, “Seeing the shortage of the commodity, big traders including multinationals have started stocking mustard oil seed in large quantities going up to two lakhs bags and more.”

Puri demanded that the government should place mustard under the Essential Commodity Act to check stocking of the crop. Mustard arrivals in 2003 at markets had already come down to as low as 15 per cent of normal levels in the third week of April. Arrivals started in the third week of March. Organisations such as National Agriculture Federation and Haryana Agriculture Federation were purchasing mustard at auction prices of Rs 1900-2200 per quintal against the government's minimum support price of Rs 1350 per quintal.

Mustard seed prices were high this year because of a smaller crop. Because of short rains in the last mustard or rabi season in the entire mustard belt of India, acreage was lower by 25 per cent. In addition, frost and rain in December-January 2003 affected production adversely. Oil content in mustard seed was also lower by 2-3 per cent. Production of mustard has come down to the lowest level in 10 years as a result. This year, production was approximately 3.8 million as compared to last year's 5.34 million tonnes.

Industry officials said Haryana Agriculture Federation was purchasing mustard for its own processing units. H B Singh, executive secretary of MRPC, warned that if the shortage continued, it would lead to closure of almost 90 per cent of the processing units, rendering lakhs of workless jobless and leading to alarmingly high prices of mustard and cake and overall shortage of cakes. It may also lead to large-scale adulteration.