A country’s comparative advantage in world trade may be affected by differential rates of change in production, factor accumulation or by other countries’ increased trade integration. The study of trade balance of agriculture sector would reveal that export always outstripped import, but what is distressing for agriculture import was that one commodity accounted for large proportion in import that commodity was edible oils. The export of any commodity in large quantities do not necessarily indicate that nation is competitive in the world market. The present study is an attempt to study the growth trend, variability, and the comparative advantage of major oilseeds export from India using revealed comparative advantage, trade specification coefficient, revealed symmetric comparative advantages and revealed competitive advantage indices. Growth trend analysis for export and import values indicates that, with the exception of export quantity of oilseed nes and import quantity and value of linseed, all showed a positive trend with high inter-annual variability over the period of the study. Following the TSC analysis, the value of export exceeded the value of import for all oilseed crops except linseed, and certain years of fluctuation were observed in the case of oilseed nes over the period of the study. The analysis of competitiveness of oilseeds export showed a favourable competitive scenario except in the case of linseed where in early 2000’s India was inefficient in export and for oilseed nes competitive advantage indices showed negative values for some years revealing lack of export competitiveness. 

Highlights

• The current study aims to examine India’s comparative advantages in the Oilseed sector on a global scale.
• This will aid policymakers in identifying competitive oilseed crops and promoting their cultivation to increase domestic production to address domestic consumer needs as well as to offer a much-needed export boost to the sector, which has been under strain for a considerable period.