The National Mission on Edible Oils - Oil Palm (NMEO-OP) is a Centrally Sponsored Scheme launched by the Government of India, approved by the Union Cabinet in August 2021. The mission's primary objective is to achieve self-reliance (Aatmanirbharta) in edible oils by significantly boosting domestic Crude Palm Oil (CPO) production and reducing India's heavy dependence on imports, which met 56% of domestic demand in 2023-24. The scheme was announced by the Prime Minister during his Independence Day speech in 2021. It was created to address the problem of rising edible oil prices, which saw a 52% hike in July 2021 compared to the previous year, and to leverage oil palm's high oil yield per hectare.
The NMEO-OP has an outlay of ₹11,040 crore over a five-year period, with the Centre contributing ₹8,844 crore. A key mechanism is the introduction of a Viability Price (VP) to provide price assurance to farmers cultivating Fresh Fruit Bunches (FFBs), shielding them from international CPO price volatility. This VP mechanism is similar to a Minimum Support Price and fixes the price at 14.3 per cent of the CPO price, with a sunset clause of November 1, 2037. The mission targets bringing an additional 6.5 lakh hectares under oil palm cultivation by 2025-26, aiming for a total of 10 lakh hectares, and increasing CPO production to 11.20 lakh tonnes by 2025-26 and 28 lakh tonnes by 2029-30. The scheme places a special focus on the North-Eastern States and the Andaman & Nicobar Islands. The NMEO-OP connects to and effectively subsumed the oil palm development programme of the National Food Security Mission (NFSM-Oil Palm) which was previously part of the National Mission on Oilseeds and Oil Palm (NMOOP). The broader effort to reduce import dependence is part of the larger National Mission on Edible Oils (NMEO), which also includes the NMEO-Oilseeds initiative launched in 2024.