Indian farmers shift from rapeseed to other crops

Rapeseed and mustard planting in India is set to drop despite higher prices, as above-average temperatures during the sowing season prompt farmers to switch to crops less affected by heat and which offer equally good returns, industry officials told Reuters.

Lower production of India’s main winter-sown oilseed crop could force the country, the world’s biggest importer of vegetable oils, to increase expensive overseas purchases of cooking oils such as palm oil, soyoil and sunflower oil to meet rising demand.

Temperatures stayed higher than usual in October and in the first three weeks of November, which was not good for the crop, said Anil Chatar, a leading trader based in Jaipur in the north-western state of Rajasthan, the biggest rapeseed producer.

“In many places, the early-planted crops didn’t germinate, so farmers ended up switching to different one,” he said.

In Rajasthan, the maximum temperature in key producing districts was 2 to 7 degrees Celsius above normal in the last few weeks, weather department data showed.

Vedpal Tyagi, a farmer from Dholpur, Rajasthan, said he planted rapeseed on 15 acres (6.07 hectares) of his land in October, but on five of those acres, the crop either failed to germinate properly or wilted soon after germination.

“Rather than replanting rapeseed, I went with wheat and potatoes,” Tyagi said. “This year, I cut down the rapeseed area to 10 acres instead of the usual 20 acres.”

In Rajasthan, rapeseed was planted on 3.12 million hectares of land as of Nov. 21, down 7.2% from a year ago, government data showed.
Higher temperatures also affected planting in neighbouring states such as Uttar Pradesh,

Madhya Pradesh, Gujarat and Haryana, which could reduce the total area under rapeseed by 10% from last year, said Chatar.

The industry was expecting a larger area under rapeseed after New Delhi increased the minimum support price by 5.3% to 5,950 rupees ($70.61) per 100 kg.

However, farmers are concerned about the pricing because soybean, the main summer-sown oilseed, has been fetching lower prices than the government-set floor price, said Chatar.

Rapeseed competes with wheat and chickpea, prices of which have jumped in recent months, spurring farmers to raise acreage for those crops by cutting the area devoted to rapeseed, said Krishna Khandelwal, a trader based at Niwai, Rajasthan.

India meets nearly a third of its cooking oil demand through imports of palm oil, soyoil and sunflower oil from Malaysia, Indonesia, Brazil, Argentina, Ukraine and Russia, according to the trade ministry.