Soybean output to decline by 24% on lower acreage, crop damage: SOPA

Floods in top growing states, blight disease take toll; total acreage down 5% this year

The country's oilseed output this year has failed to keep pace with rising consumer demand for cooking oil.

The latest survey by the apex industry body, the Soybean Processors' Association (SOPA), estimates India's soybean output at 8.35 million tonnes for the harvesting season 2017-18, about 24 per cent lower than 10.9 million tonnes reported in the previous year. Sown with the onset of the monsoon, soybean is a kharif crop that contributes to nearly a third of India's overall oilseeds' output and sets the trend for other seeds such as groundnut and sesame in the summer sowing season, and rapeseed and