The sowing area under edible oilseeds rose 9 per cent in the current Rabi season on account of extended monsoon rainfall, the latest estimates from the apex body representing the oil industry.
The total area under the sensitive commodities jumped to 83.75 lakh hectares (ha) by December 12, 2008, as compared to 76.97 lakh ha in the year-ago period, the Central Organisation for Oil Industry and Trade (COOIT) said.
Conventionally, rapeseed/mustardseed is the largest crop in terms of acreage and yield in the Rabi season, which runs through November to February.
The rapeseed/mustardseed acreage sharply shot up by 11 per cent to 57.02 lakh ha this year compared with 63.28 lakh ha last year. Mustardseed is usually to inter-crop along with the winter wheat crop.
Inter-cropping is the practice of cultivating two different crops in the same space at the same time. Mustarseed is harvested earlier than wheat, thus not hampering the latter’s output.
The area under sunflowerseed also recorded an increase of 10 per cent to 9.17 lakh ha from 8.34 lakh ha, whereas groundnut recorded a marginal jump to 3.53 lakh ha from 3.45 lakh ha.
| WINTERNACREAGE Cropwise summary (Area in lakh hectares, as on Dec 12, 2008) | |||
| Oilseeds | 2007 | 2008 | Chg (%) |
| Groundnut | 3.45 | 3.53 | 2.32 |
| Rapeseed/ Mustardseed | 57.02 | 63.28 | 10.98 |
| Sesamum | 0.57 | 0.65 | 14.04 |
| Linseed | 4.03 | 3.66 | 9.18 |
| Sunflowerseed | 8.34 | 9.17 | 9.95 |
| Safflowerseed | 2.86 | 2.64 | 7.69 |
| Others | 0.7 | 0.82 | 17.14 |
| Total | 76.97 | 83.75 | 8.81 |
In the recent past, many farmers had migrated from safflowerseed and linseed to better remunerative crops such as mustardseed. Hence, the area under safflowerseed and linseed declined to 2.64 lakh ha from 2.86 lakh ha, while that for linseed slumped to 3.66 lakh ha from 4.03 lakh ha.
Industry experts believe that farmers planned rabi crops as early as July when agricultural commodities prices were rising.
They were also enthused by the government’s decision to raise minimum support price (MSP) of oilseeds and assurances to farmers to procure the entire unsold quantity at the announced price.
But, farmers were disappointed with the government move to lower import duty on crude edible oils to nil and a marginal 7.5 per cent on refined edible oil.
Even though the import duty on sunflower oil was raised to 20 per cent, it failed to convince farmers as the sector contributes less than 10 per cent of the 12.5 million tonnes of total edible oil consumption in India.
