Crop Prospects Depress Soybean Prices

They said the soybean crop in the 1996/97 (November-October) season could touch 4.4 million tonnes, boosted by timely rains in late-September and early October.

In the 1995/96 season, which ends this month, India has harvested 4.2 million tonnes of soybean.

Expectations of a bumper crop have already depressed local soybean prices, said Davesh Jain, chairman of the Soybean Processors Association of India (SOPA), based at Indore.

Traders said arrivals of the new crop had brought the prices down by Rs 400 per tonne in the past two days.

Currently the new seasons arrivals are around 4,000 tonnes per day in central Indian markets, about the same as last year. Normal arrivals will begin from November.

 

Indian soymeal prices may fall further because of a subdued international soymeal market due to higher world production estimates, Jain said.

He said export prices in the last month fell by $15 per tonne to $270 because of anticipated higher world supplies.

Soybean production in the United States for the 1996/97 season is estimated at 63.85 million tonnes against 59.25 million in the previous year.

China, a major importer of soymeal, was not an aggressive buyer of Indian extractions this time because of higher prices, said Sunil Saboo of trading firm S S Mercantile.

Saboo said higher availability of soybeans in the 1996/97 season could help boost exports of soymeal to nearly 2.7 million tonnes against 2.4 million in the current year.

What is worrying are the prices, he said.