Rapidly increasing urbanisation in India and China might cause huge shrinkage in edible oil crop acreage area resulting in production shortfall, said Dorab Mistry, director, Godrej International, at the 3rd Annual Symposium of CIARA-CEC in Argentina. | |
| He added that the demand would continue to rise due to three Ps -- population, prosperity and petroleum prices. |
| |
| "Although, India is presently focusing on services unlike China on agriculture, yet infrastructure is being developed at massive speed. And this would surely and steadily minimise the sowing area over the years," Mistry said. |
| |
| According to the Centre's estimates, the acreage under kharif and rabi oilseeds have declined by 5.47 per cent this season to 226.7 lakh hectare as compared with 239.7 lakh hectare during the last season. The total sowing area under rabi oilseeds alone slipped by 10.34 per cent to 100.80 lakh hectare from 112.42 lakh hectare last season. |
| |
| The loss in acreage area has resulted into a production loss of 7.30 per cent to 95.2 lakh tonne from 102.7 lakh tonne last rabi season. Mistry said. |
| |
| "The rise in energy prices and the commodity boom have given agriculture a unique opportunity to bring prosperity to the countryside". |
| |
| According to the weekly publication Oil World's data, the production estimates of 2007-08 at 373 million tonne was achieved in 2004-05 which indicates that the per hectare yield has grown remarkably faster than the estimated in early this century. |
| |
| The world oilseed production stood at 387 million tonne in 2006-07 as compared to 381 million tonne in 2005-06 and 371 million tonne in 2004-05. |
| |
| Similarly, world vegetable oil production was 113.7 million tonne in 2005 against a forecast of 113.7 million tonne in 2010. This indicates that the demand is increasing alarmingly. The world demand of vegetable oils grew by 6 million tonne comprising 4 million tonne for food and 2 million tonne for energy sectors. |
| |
| Mistry added that the edible oil demand would grow by 4 million tonne despite higher prices while energy oil demand to increase by 2 million tonne upto 2010. |
| |
| Meanwhile, emphasising on the urgent need to raise oilseed production, A R Sharma, president of the Solvent Extractors' Association of India, said that at present our farm productivity is just 950 - 970 kgs/ha which is almost half of world average. |
| |
|
| |
