Rains, returns may up oilseeds area

Better price realisation has led farmers to shift towards oilseeds from sugarcane.

The oilseeds acreage may increase by about 15 per cent in the ensuing kharif season, triggered by a favourable monsoon forecast and expectation of better returns.

The situation is slightly biased towards oilseeds as the crop has made farmers richer by about 30 per cent than the other kharif crops like sugarcane, said Davish Jain, chairman, Central Organisation for Oil Industry and Trade (COOIT). 
 

BRIGHT PROSPECTS
Output (lakh tonnes)	2006-07		2007-08
	Kharif	Rabi	Kharif	Rabi
Groundnut	35.00	18.50	52.70	20.20
Soybean	79.60	"�	94.60	"�
Rape/mustard/toria	"�	60.20	"�	50.90
Sunflowerseed	5.40	10.60	5.30	9.30
Sesameseed	4.00	2.10	4.50	2.10
Castorseed	7.80	"�	9.10	"�
Nigerseed	0.70	"�	0.70	"�
Linseed	"�	1.90	"�	1.80
Total	134.50	95.20	168.90	86.00

He, however, declined to specify the expected increase in area. "Much would depend on the monsoon and farmers' interest towards oilseeds," he said.

During the last kharif season, the oilseads sowing area increased by 6 per cent from 17 million hectares to 18 million hectares.

According to the latest COOIT estimate, the oilseeds acreage declined by about 5 per cent in the last rabi season (September onwards) because farmers shifted to cotton, which yielded about 17 per cent more returns. Shankar 6, the benchmark super cotton variety, is currently quoted at Rs 23,000 a candy (356 kg).

Though the total oilseeds acreage reduced in the 2007-08 rabi season from 102.97 lakh hectares to 97.14 lakh hectares, it still remained about 9 per cent higher than the normal area of 90.94 lakh hectares, according to an estimate by the Hyderabad-based Directorate of Oilseeds Development.

With the surplus sowing area expected this year, oilseeds for crushing are also likely to increase. During the last kharif season, the total marketable surplus for crushing had witnessed a 29 per cent increase to 123.6 lakh tonnes as against the 95.9 lakh tonnes in the corresponding period in 2006.

However, the availability of oilseeds declined 14 per cent at 74.8 lakh tonnes in the recently concluded rabi season compared with the 84.6 lakh tonnes last year.

The situation looks optimistic this year as more farmers will cultivate oilseeds, with prices of edible oil going up dramatically in the past year. Some area, which is under cyclical crops, may shift towards oilseeds this kharif season, said B V Mehta, executive director, Solvent Extractors' Association (SEA). In the 2007-08 oil year, the total oilseed output had jumped sharply by 11 per cent to 25.49 million tonnes compared with 22.97 million tonnes in 2006-07.

However, farmers may be slightly disappointed with the government's measures to increase domestic supplies. This may result in a minor drop in their enthusiasm to divert to oilseeds, an edible oil trader said.

To rein in the rising inflation, the government has taken many steps, including abolishing customs duty on crude edible oil, bringing down the duty on refined edible oil imports to 7.5 per cent, among others.