India’s palm oil ambitions sprout in Malaysian nurseries

India has emerged as the largest importer of Malaysian oil palm seeds, signaling a new chapter in agri-commercial cooperation between the two nations. In 2024 alone, India imported 3.03 million tonnes of palm oil from Malaysia—17.9 per cent of Malaysia’s total palm oil exports—making it the top global destination. But beyond refined product flows, India’s

expanding footprint as a buyer of germinated oil palm seeds underscores a deeper structural shift: the acceleration of domestic palm oil cultivation to reduce edible oil import dependency. Driven by the National Mission on Edible Oils–Oil Palm (NMEO-OP), India aims to bring one million hectares under oil palm by 2025–26 and ramp up domestic crude palm oil production to 2.8 million tonnes by 2029–30. Current estimates suggest about 370,000 hectares are already under cultivation, with the northeast and island territories emerging as focal points of this agro-industrial transformation. As acreage expands, so too does the demand for quality planting material—making Malaysia, a global leader in oil palm R&D, a strategic seed supplier. The seed trade, however, remains fragmented and largely informal. Transactions are mostly ad hoc, driven by business-to-business channels without long-term procurement frameworks. Still, the consistent flow of consignments and technical collaboration ...