Dairy co-ops' demand of export duty on oilmeals unjust: SEA

Reacting to co-operative dairy's request to the Centre government to impose duty on de-oiled cakes, a key raw material for manufacturing cattlefeed, The Solvent Extractors' Association of India (SEA) has stated that imposition of 25 per cent duty on oilmeals is not a solution to control rising cost of cattlefeed.

In a letter to all its member, SEA president, Ashok Sethia has said that their (co-operative dairies) demand is absolutely incorrect as the domestic availability of oilmeals has actually increased due to steep fall in export of oilmeals.

"The solution is not in imposing the export duty on oilmeals, which will be very counter productive and will kill the sick crushing industry. It could also create a shortage as well as increase the price of oilmeals leading to loss of export markets developed over the years," Sethia said.

Assuring co-operative dairy industry of supplying oilmeals to meet their full demand, the SEA president added that the government should take some policy measures to support the domestic crushing industry in this difficult time.

According to him, policy measures by the government will encourage the crushing industry to crush large quantity of oilseeds, which are already available and thereby make larger quantity of oilmeals available to the domestic cattle and poultry industry.

He also appealed the dairy co-operatives not to rush for the short cut to tame rising prices of cattlefeed, which, he claimed, could prove expensive to them in the long run.

Last month, a high level delegation of co-operative dairy sector had met the prime minister Manmohan Singh and agriculture minister Sharad Pawar and submitted a memorandum highlighting various issues, including higher prices of cattlefeed, faced by the dairy sector.

Expressing concern over 50 per cent rise in cattlefeed prices, dairy sector players had informed the Centre that the export of oilmeals from India had increased considerably over past two years, which resulted into higher prices of oilmeals and that ultimately increased the feeding cost to the animal.