- India will be hosting the 3rd International Sunflower Seed and Oil Conference(ISSOC) 2019 on July 19 and 20 in Mumbai.
- It is organized by the International Sunflower Oil Association (ISOA and will be hosted by the Solvent Extractors’ Association of India (SEA).
- International Sunflower Oil Association (ISOA) was established in 2015 in Rome by National Associations and Companies from China,Ukraine, Russia, Hungary, Spain and Argentina.
- It aims to encourage and promote better communications among sunflower oil producers,industry groups, academic researchers and local governments, as well as enhancing sunflower oil value addition and enlarging the field of its commercial application.
- The first International Sunflower Oil Symposium was held in 2015 at Shanghai,China and the second conference was held in 2017 at Odessa,Ukraine.
- Further,India is the largest importer of sunflower oil with imports of about 2.8 million tonnes.The global imports of sunflower oil is around 9.6 million tonnes.
- Sunflower seed is seen as a healthy table-seed and culinary seed having wide applications in a variety of food preparations including cakes and pastries.
