Nafed procures 21 lakh tn mustard

National Agricultural Cooperative Marketing Federation(Nafed) has procured around 21 lakh tonne mustard this year which is almost the same as last year. In addition to this, it has last year's carry over stock of about 15 lakh tonne.

The procurement was done between March 1 and May 15. "The total cost of the procurement is about Rs 4,000 crore," said Alok Ranjan,managing director, Nafed.

Nafed is drawing elaborate plans for disposal of the procured mustard. "We are trying to dispose about 2 lakh tonne per month," said Ranjan.

This would include sale of one lakh tonne mustard seed every month. 50, 000 tonne will be used to produce oil under Nafed's various brands.

The food ministry has proposal, to use around 50,000 tonne for blending mustard oil with vanaspati in 1:5. The annual vanaspati consumption is about 10 lakh tonne.

If the ministry's proposal materialises, nearly 6 lakh tonne mustard would be used by the vanaspati industry, added Ranjan. Six lakh tonne mustard would yield about 2 lakh tonne oil.

Even if 2 lakh tonne is consumed every month the federation would still have 12 lakh tonne after a year. Nafed is planning a monthly tender system from June to increase market consumption of mustard, said Ranjan.

Procured stocks are stored in the central and state warehousing corporations which have been advised to test check the quality before storing them.

Also, due to the shortage of storage space in Rajasthan,Nafed has moved 4 lakh tonne mustard to various other states so far.