High soybean output may boost animal feed exports

India, Asia's biggest exporter of soybean meal, may ship record volumes of livestock feed next year after farmers planted more soybean to benefit from high prices for the commodity and its products.

Soybean output may reach 8.6 million tonnes, 21 per cent more than in the year earlier, Rajesh Agrawal, coordinator for the Soybean Processors' Association of India, said in an interview. The crop has been planted to a record 8.7 million hectares (21.5 million acres), an increase of 13 per cent, he said.

Higher exports may lower sales for US-based Bunge, the world's biggest oilseed processor, and Latin American suppliers of animal feed to Japan and South Korea, when prices of soybean meal are trading near a three-year high reached in July. The country supplies Southeast Asian nations because of its proximity to those markets. 
 

FERTILE FUTURE 2007 kharif area
State	Targeted  area	Total sown area
Madhya Pradesh	45.70	46.903
Maharashtra	23.85	22.852
Rajasthan	7.00	6.108
Andhra Pradesh	0.86	1.024
Karnataka	1.30	1.530
Chattisgarh	1.20	0.970
Rest of India (Gujrat, UP)	1.71	1.440
Total	81.62	80.827
(Production in lakh tonnes Area in Lakh hectare) Source: Soybean Processors' Association of India

"The crop is in excellent shape and there are no threats of pest attacks,'' said Agrawal. "The downside for the crop is 8.5 million tonnes. It could be one tonne more if weather holds good for the next one month.''

Soybean futures in Chicago have gained 64 per cent in the past year, reaching a three-year high of $9.50 a bushel on July 13 as farmers in the US planted more corn and reduced the oilseed's acreage to the lowest in 12 years.

The contract for delivery in November fell 0.6 per cent to $9.0225 a bushel in the after-hours electronic trading on the Chicago Board of Trade.