Floods, lower acreage to cut soybean output by 24%

This year, the country’s oilseed output has been unsatisfactory to the extent that it has failed to keep pace with rising consumer demand of cooking oil. This will raise India’s annual edible oil import bill, which is estimated at around ~650 billion for importing over 15 million tonnes of cooking oil.

The latest survey by the Soybean Processors Association (SOPA) estimates India’s soybean output at 8.35 million tonnes for the harvesting season of 2017-18, around 24 per cent lower than the previous year's yield of 10.9 million tonnes.

Soybean, a kharif crop whose seeds are sown at the onset of the monsoon, constitutes nearly one-third of India’s overall oilseed production. Farmers get a sense of how the harvest will be, for other kharif crops such as groundnut and sesame seed and also rabi crops, including mustard, from the soybean output.

The SOPA had estimated India’s soybean output at 9.15 million tonnes in its first survey in October. By contrast, however, the agriculture ministry pegs India’s soybean output at 12.22 million tonnes in its first advanced estimate for the 2017-18 season compared to 13.79 million tonnes of yield estimated in its fourth advanced estimate for 2016-17.

“After an extensive survey in major soybean growing districts of Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra and Rajasthan, India’s three major oilseed growing states that contribute around 90 per cent of the country's total oilseed production, and interaction with farmers, traders, and processing plants as well as taking into consideration the arrivals, crushing, direct use and exports, we have revised the kharif 2017 soybean crop estimate to 8.35 million tonnes from 9.15 million tonnes forecast in October 2017. During the last season, India’s soybean output was reported at 10.9 million tonnes,” said DN Pathak, executive director, SOPA.