14/08/2009 (The Financial Express), Mumbai - Import of edible oils during the third quarter (May/July 2009) of the oil year 2008-09 rose 39% at 21.27 lakh tonne over 15.26 lakh tonne in the same period last year, according to Solvent Extractors’ Association of India (SEA).

Import of edible oils during July 2009 was more or less same as of the last year and reported at 5.96 lakh tonne over 5.71 lakh tonne for July’08. Overall import of edible oils during November 2008 to July 2009 jumped 55% to 64.19 lakh tonne from 41.38 lakh tonne for the same period last year.

“This year’s monsoon in India is likely to be the poorest in many years. Precipitation remained significantly below normal so far in August,” BV Mehta,executive director, SEA said.

For the first time , since 2001, India has imported a parcel of about, 5,000 tonne of cottonseed oil during July 2009. It is feared that production of kharif crops will suffer a major setback this year as the dryness has partly prevented plantings and will also curb the yield potential massively. This is likely to lead to lower production of oilseeds and reduced domestic oil availability in next oil year, he added. Drought-like conditions have spread further and are meanwhile affecting one-third of the country.

The erratic monsoon and likely lower kharif oilseeds crop will further push the import in September/October and overall imports are likely to be about 80 lakh tonne (75 lakh edible oil plus 5 lakh non edible oil) for the current oil year ending October 2009 over 63 lakh tonne import during last year.

Acreage, as on August 6 of groundnut is worst affected and reported at 35.7 lakh hectare only compared to 45.5 lakh hectare last year at the same time. Soybean acerage marginally increased to 93.7 lakh hectare compared to 91.3 lakh hectare last year. Cotton has gone up considerably and reported at 92.9 lakh hectare compared to 79.5 lakh hectare. Oilseeds production will be depend on how the monsoon behaves in August & September, Mehta said.