Feature Story
Cooking oil in India is far more than a kitchen essential; it reflects culture, tradition, and everyday life. From ghee-rich festive sweets to deep-fried street food, oil is deeply woven into Indian food habits.
In recent years, cooking oil has also become central to a growing debate around health and affordability.
Healthier oils such as olive oil often cost between INR 800–1200 (USD 10–15), making them inaccessible to many middle-income households. At the same time, India faces a rising burden of cardiovascular diseases (CVDs), increasing the need for healthier edible oils.
This creates a paradox: healthier oils remain expensive, while affordable oils are often linked to poorer health outcomes.
To address this challenge, scientists from ICRISAT and ICAR developed India’s first high oleic acid groundnut varieties — ICGV 15083 (Girnar 4) and ICGV 15090 (Girnar 5).
Released in 2020, these varieties contain higher levels of oleic acid, offering improved heart health benefits and better shelf life.
Dr Janila Pasupuleti, Groundnut Breeding Lead at ICRISAT
Reflecting on the innovation, Dr Janila Pasupuleti, Groundnut Breeding Lead at ICRISAT, highlighted the unique consumer-driven approach.
“Unlike the usual top-down approach, high oleic groundnut breeding was driven by consumer needs.
“The science behind heart-healthy oil is to increase oleic acid, a heart-friendly monounsaturated fat, while reducing less healthy fatty acids linked to low-density lipoprotein (LDL), or bad cholesterol.
“This has led to the release of High Oleic Acid Groundnut varieties, Girnar 4 and Girnar 5 in India,” said Dr Pasupuleti.
Globally, demand for high oleic oils continues to rise, and research efforts to enhance oleic acid content in major oilseed crops such as sunflower, mustard, and safflower are gaining momentum, with several high oleic variants now commercially available.
Dr Pasupuleti said the success of the initiative was driven by advances in genomics, collaboration among research partners and rigorous field testing across diverse environments.
Building the High Oleic Ecosystem
While scientific advances made high-oleic groundnut varieties such as Girnar 4 and Girnar 5 possible, translating these innovations from research labs to consumers’ kitchens required strong market integration.
This is where AgroCrops, a global leader in the peanut industry, leveraged its five decades of expertise to build an ecosystem around high-oleic peanuts through its HOPE (High Oleic Peanuts) Initiative.
As part of this effort, AgroCrops promoted the cultivation of high-oleic groundnut in India and other producing countries.
Through partnering with Farmer-Producer Organizations (FPOs), the company enabled farmers to adopt these improved varieties while creating stronger market linkages.
AgroCrops CEO Mr Saravanan Lokasundaram said their strategy has always been about integration.
“The idea was to connect peanut farmers to processing and end-use requirements while creating differentiated value across stakeholders.
“For us, high oleic groundnut represents more than a conventional crop improvement.
“It is part of a much larger transformation in global food systems and in fact, it is trailblazing; we are observing first-hand the market response to a health-linked agricultural product,” said Mr Lokasundaram.
Following the release of Girnar 4 and Girnar 5 in 2020 for kharif (monsoon-season) cultivation in Rajasthan, Gujarat, Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka and Tamil Nadu, AgroCrops helped build farmer confidence by offering reliable market access and premium prices, reducing uncertainty during the early stages of adoption.
Gujarat Farmers Champion High Oleic Groundnut Seed Multiplication
Farmers in Gujarat have also played an important role in expanding the cultivation of high oleic groundnut varieties across the state.
Working closely with Khedut Feeds and Foods Pvt. Ltd., a Gujarat-based agro-processing company, farmers participated in large-scale multiplication of Girnar 4 and Girnar 5 seeds during 2021 and 2022, thereby strengthening the availability of high-oleic planting material for wider adoption.
