India's soybean acreage to shrink as farmers favour corn, sugar cane
Soybean is India's main summer-sown oilseed crop and lower output will force the world's biggest importer of edible oils to increase overseas buying of palm oil, soyoil and sunflower oil.
"We've barely made any profit from soybean over the past three years, so this year we're switching to corn — it's giving better returns," said Subodh Parmar, a farmer in Devas in Madhya Pradesh state.
Soybean prices were under pressure in the last few months, which is prompting farmers to switch to other crops, said D.N. Pathak, executive director of the Soybean Processors Association of India (SOPA).
The government fixed a floor price of 4,892 rupees ($57.29) per 100 kg for soybean, but since the start of the new marketing year in October 2024, prices have been 10 to 20% below this level.
Soybean is mainly a rain-fed crop, and the monsoon rains - expected to be above average this year - play a crucial part in deciding yields.
The states of Madhya Pradesh in central India, Maharashtra in the west, Rajasthan in the northwest and Andhra Pradesh and Karnataka in the south, are major producers of soybean.
Soybean contains more than 80% meal and less than 20% oil, but local soymeal demand has been squeezed by cheaper supplies of distiller's dried grains with solubles (DDGS), a byproduct of ethanol production, said B.V. Mehta, executive director of the Solvent Extractors' Association of India (SEA).
The poultry industry is a big consumer of soymeal, but in the past two years it has been replacing soymeal with DDGS since it is more than 30% cheaper, Mehta said.
In Maharashtra, the leading producer of sugar in India, ample rainfall has prompted some farmers to switch to water-intensive perennial sugarcane, said a Mumbai-based dealer with a global trade house.
"It seems the new soybean crop will be considerably lower than last year's. This will obviously force India to increase imports of edible oils," the dealer said.
India buys palm oil mainly from Indonesia and Malaysia, while it imports soyoil and sunflower oil from Argentina, Brazil, Russia and Ukraine.
($1 = 85.3850 Indian rupees)
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Reuters
27 minutes ago
- Reuters
Singapore Telecommunications logs 14% rise in first-quarter profit
Aug 13 (Reuters) - Singapore Telecommunications ( opens new tab reported a 14% rise in first-quarter underlying profit on Wednesday, driven by strong performance from Australian unit Optus and contributions from regional associates including India's Bharti Airtel ( opens new tab. Southeast Asia's largest telecom operator reported an underlying net profit of S$686 million ($534.77 million) for the three-month period ended June 30, up from S$603 million a year earlier. That was largely in line with the consensus estimate of S$686.9 million, according to Visible Alpha. ($1 = 1.2828 Singapore dollars)
BBC News
3 hours ago
- BBC News
FTA: UK firms chase $38bn India contracts but challenges loom
A standout feature of the India-UK free trade agreement signed last month was the Narendra Modi government's decision to open India's vast government procurement market to UK suppliers. This typically includes a range of things the government buys - from goods and services to contracts for public works such as roads. Some 40,000 high-value tenders worth £38bn from federal ministries will now be open to bidding for UK businesses in strategic sectors like transport, green energy and infrastructure - areas which have thus far been heavily protected from foreign access is unprecedented, trade experts is "far greater" than what India had offered in its earlier agreement with the United Arab Emirates and "sets a new benchmark", Ajay Srivastava of the Global Trade Research Initiative (GTRI), a Delhi-based think-tank, told the the agreement, UK firms bidding for Indian government contracts in specified areas will be treated almost on par with Indian suppliers and also have real-time access to information on forthcoming public tenders and procurement goods from the UK made with just 20% domestic input can now be supplied to the Indian government, allowing UK companies the flexibility to source up to 80% of the parts or raw material from other countries and still qualify for procurement preference in minimum contract value at which these firms can bid for government projects has also been sharply reduced as a result of which "UK companies can now bid on a wide range of lower-value projects - such as rural roads, solar equipment for schools, or IT systems for government offices - that were previously out of reach", said Mr Srivastava. But for British companies, realising this opportunity on the ground will be easier said than done, several experts told the UK suppliers are eligible to participate as Class-II local suppliers, Indian companies will continue to get preferential treatment as Class-I suppliers, says Dr Arpita Mukherjee, a trade expert with the Indian Council for Research on International Economic pricing plays a key role in winning contracts, and "UK companies tend to have higher prices" compared with Indian companies, which will be a major challenge for them, she adds.A more significant deterrent will be delayed payments and difficult contract enforcement, which are "major legacy issues when it comes to public procurement in India", says Srijan Shukla of the Observer Research Foundation says a study on procurement by India's central public sector enterprises from 2017 to 2020 found that pending payments to suppliers were often more than the total average procurement in a year."This will impact UK players trying to enter India's public procurement markets, especially when it comes to public contracts that have long-time horizons and are subject to regulatory and political uncertainties," Mr Shukla told the dues have been a major irritant for India's small businesses too, leading to short-term liquidity issues that often "force them out of these procurement markets and reallocate that business to the big players", according to Mr of this is reflected in India's poor ranking - 163 out of 190 - on contract enforcement in the World Bank's Doing Business report, the latest round of which was in things have improved since these rankings were published - with one-stop-shop portals like Government e-Marketplace, the Central Public Procurement Portal or the recently launched online dispute resolution portal bringing more transparency to the public tendering process - payment discipline by government entities continues to remain a challenge, says Mr to Ms Mukherjee, the India-UK trade agreement emphasises transparency in procurement but omits issues like pending dues, contract enforcement and adds the deal excludes the Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement's dispute settlement provisions for four years after the CETA takes effect - these provisions usually define how disputes are resolved."Doing business in India is an acquired skill. Over time, companies from the UK will have to learn the way to work around complexities regarding the art of winning public tenders and navigating though complex regulations," Mr Shukla says. Despite the niggling issues, allowing foreign players entry into India's government procurement market marks a far-reaching policy shows the Indian government's intentions to open up a space that has long been reserved for local small and medium enterprises, and could be reflective of the concessions Delhi is willing to give foreign players in future trade agreements like the one being negotiated with the US, according to is late to including deep government procurement clauses in trade deals, making its current efforts a catch-up game, says Mr is also a sign, he says, of the Indian government's "confidence that its own firms can compete with global firms both externally and at home". The hope is that more foreign players will force more accountability from the Indian government and "help standardise" its tendering and public procurement process - marked by payment delays and poor contract enforcement - to global standards. Follow BBC News India on Instagram, YouTube, X and Facebook.
Reuters
8 hours ago
- Reuters
India's Apollo Hospitals to double AI investments, beats profit estimate
HYDERABAD, Aug 12 (Reuters) - India's Apollo Hospitals Enterprise ( opens new tab plans to double its investment in artificial intelligence capabilities over the next two to three years, its CEO said, after the company beat first-quarter profit estimates on higher patient volume. The hospital chain already uses AI tools in diagnosis to read X-rays, scan reports and also in endoscopy - a medical procedure to examine the inside of the body using a camera, CEO Madhu Sasidhar told Reuters on Tuesday. Many large private hospital chains in India, like their western counterparts, are investing in AI capabilities to improve patient diagnosis and decisions related to medical procedures, among others uses. Apollo recently developed technology to read existing scan reports and predict the risk of liver fibrosis in the future, Sasidhar said. "We are also bringing some other new generation agentic AI-type tools," he said. He did not quantify the size of Apollo's existing investment in AI. Apollo, headquartered in the south Indian city of Chennai, partnered with Microsoft (MSFT.O), opens new tab earlier this year to develop AI-based tools to be used in healthcare. Some of them are in early stages of testing, Sasidhar said. Indian hospital chains such as Apollo and Manipal have also been increasing their bed count for a larger share of the market, including through acquisitions of smaller hospital operators. Apollo said it is on track to add 4,370 beds over the next 3-4 years through acquisition, new hospitals and expansion of existing facilities. Its overall bed capacity is currently more than 10,000. The company's consolidated net profit rose 41.8% to 4.33 billion rupees ($49.40 million) for April-June, beating estimates of 3.86 billion rupees, according to data compiled by LSEG. While its overall occupancy rate dipped from last year, in-patient volume grew 3% and average revenue per in-patient increased by 9%, according to Apollo. Quarterly total revenue rose 15% to 58.42 billion rupees, beating estimates of 57.44 billion rupees. The company said it expects double-digit revenue growth for the current financial year. ($1 = 87.6520 Indian rupees)
