Nafed left with 1.4 mn tonne mustard stock

National Agricultural Cooperative Marketing Federation is left with 1.3-1.4 mln tn of mustard seeds from the stocks it procured during 2005 and 2006 rabi sowing seasons, a senior official said today.

The purchases were made under the price support scheme of the central government after mustard prices fell below the minimum support price owing to bumper harvest.

"The stock position of mustard with Nafed is as on Dec 2006," the official said.

At the start of 2006, Nafed was left with over 2 million tonne of mustard seeds. It procured another 2.1 million tonne during the season.

However, it managed to sell most of the stocks on good demand from extractors and also because of stable edible oil prices.

Nafed plans to start the new mustard marketing season in February with stock in hand of 1 million tonne.

"We might cap our mustard selling programme with 1 million tonne of stock in hand as this year mustard acreage has gone down due to shift towards wheat and pulses," the official added.

In India mustard crops are sown around Sep-Oct and the harvest starts from late February. As per latest government data, mustard crop was sown around 6.5 million hectares Oct 1-Dec 22 against 7.2 mln ha year-ago. Nafed reduced its mustard selling price since Tuesday because of weakness in edible oil markets, the official said.

"Today, we sold our mustard stocks at Rs 1,730 per 100 kg in Jaipur and at Rs 1,695 per 100 kg in rest of Rajasthan due to fall in edible oil prices," the official added. In SriGanganagar district of Rajasthan, the federation sold stocks at Rs 1,615 per 100 kg.

Last week, Nafed was selling mustard stocks in Jaipur at Rs 1,765 per 100 kg and in rest of Rajasthan at Rs 1,750 per 100 kg.