India is exploring Mozambique as a new source of oilseeds and vegetable oils to diversify its imports, Rural Voice reports. The Solvent Extractors' Association of India (SEA) and the government of Nampula province in northern Mozambique signed a statement of interest at the Globoil India conference in Mumbai to explore a sustainable oilseed and vegetable oil corridor.
It was signed by Nampula Governor Eduardo Mariamo Abdula and SEA President Angshu Mallick, with Solidaridad Network Asia and Solidaridad Southern Africa as sustainability partners. The three-year exploratory agreement will look at commercial investment, local processing and traceable sourcing, and each party will name representatives to a joint working group within 15 days to study soil suitability, transport, port capacity, costs and environmental impacts. A delegation of SEA member companies is due to visit Nampula in the first quarter of 2027.
India's edible oil imports are concentrated: palm oil from Indonesia and Malaysia, soybean oil from Argentina and Brazil and sunflower oil from Russia and Ukraine, which leaves supply exposed to geopolitical and trade shocks. National vegetable oil demand is projected to reach 46.5 million tonnes by 2047. Nampula, on the Nacala Development Corridor with road and rail links to the deepwater port of Nacala, offers a shorter route to India's west coast than South America.
Solidaridad will oversee safeguards on smallholder empowerment, water management and land rights, with expansion only on degraded or already converted land, and smallholders who grow oilseeds with little market access are to be brought into formal value chains.
Source: Rural Voice
Comments
(0)