Tamil Nadu Agricultural University has advised sunflower farmers to sell their produce immediately on harvest as farm gate price of good quality sunflower seed was likely to hover around Rs 3,500 to Rs 3,600 per quintal till October.
The current farm gate price at Vellakoil regulated market was between Rs 3,400 and Rs 3,500. To help the farmers take better decision, Agro Marketing Intelligence and Business Promotion Centre in TNAU carried out an econometric analysis of price behaviour in the market for last 14 years.
In Tamil Nadu, sunflower is cultivated in 0.07 lakh hectares with a production of 0.05 lakh tonnes in 2014-15 and oil recovery of around 35 per cent.
Karur, Thoothukudi, Tiruchirapalli, Dindigul, Virudhunagar and Ariyalur districts account for 81 per cent of area and 79 per cent of production in Tamil Nadu.
Sunflower is the fourth largest edible oil seed produced in India and is cultivated in 3.83 lakh hectares with a production of 2.53 lakh tonnes in 2014-15, which however is less than 24 per cent in area and 36 per cent in production when compared to 2013-14.
The major producers of sunflower are Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh, Maharashtra, Punjab and Tamil Nadu.
Sunflower oil is mainly used in South and Western India and Chennai sea port accounted for 64.3 per cent of total sunflower oil imports from India.
