HYDERABAD : Dubbed as the biggest annual event in the world on vegetable oil research, the four-day 97th annual conference of the American Oil Chemists' Society (AOCS), which concluded at St. Louis, Missouri (US), recently, decided to provide special membership to Indians at $ 25 each. Its normal rate is $ 70 to $ 150 for each member.

The society supported the international seminar on `New horizons in lipids and speciality oleochemicals' organised at the Indian Institute of Chemical Technology (IICT) here in December last.

R.B.N. Prasad, head of IICT Lipid Science and Technology Division, who attended the society meet, told The Hindu that the special membership would enable Indians to get the electronic version of `Inform', a magazine which projects the world scenario on vegetable oil research.

Dr. Prasad said the special membership would be of particular interest to the Oil Technologists' Association of India (OTAI). He presented a paper on `Oilseeds phospho lipids' at the conference which was attended by about 1,300 delegates from 47 countries.

He said that AOCS was looking towards India in view of the huge vegetable oil market which was believed to be around Rs.70,000 crores. India consumes about 10 per cent of the world's output of edible and non-edible oils totalling 135 million tonnes.

The AOCS, he said, was contemplating holding an international seminar to give a boost to the vegetable oil sector in the country. The AOCS conference, he said, covered different areas of vegetable oil research like processing, industrial oil products, health and nutrition, surfactants and detergents and biotechnology.

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