Two years of drought and rising winter temperatures have led to the launch of crop damage insurance plans
NEW DELHI, India (Reuters) — Slow seeding on India’s parched farms and the warmest winter in some areas in at least five years could hit rapeseed production and reduce its oil content.
The development raises the prospect of higher vegetable oil im-ports.
Prices of rapeseed, which is the country’s main winter oilseed with the highest oil content, touched a record high in 2015 after India’s first back-to-back droughts in nearly three decades and unseasonal rains hit production.
“This year, the output of rapeseed will fall and the crop will also have less oil content due to warm weather and a lack of water,” said Dines Garg, a farmer from the key rapeseed producing state of Madhya Pradesh in central India.
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Garg said his rapeseed acreage has shrunk to a third of what it was last season.
India’s overall rapeseed production could fall seven to eight percent from an estimated five million tonnes last year, said a trader in the top rapeseed-producing Rajasthan state said.
Indian farmers have planted rapeseed on 15.52 million acres of land in the seeding season that began Oct 1, down 3.2 percent from a year earlier, according to the federal farm ministry.
Temperatures in northern and central India have been the highest in at least five years for the period and will affect winter-seeded crops, said G.P. Sharma, a meteorology expert at private weather forecaster Skymet.
The government said it is trying to help.
Federal farm minister Radha Mohan Singh said the Indian Council of Agricultural Research has been developing new varieties to tackle the effect of climate change on agricultural productivity.
Singh also announced that the government will launch its first major crop damage insurance scheme for farmers in the fiscal year starting April 1.
Lower supplies of oilseeds may prompt India, which consumes 18 to 19 million tonnes of edible oil annually, to boost purchases of cheaper vegetable oils from top producing countries such as Malaysia and Indonesia.
India, which is Asia’s third largest economy, made record imports of vegetable oil in the marketing year that ended in October, which was its third highest overseas purchase after crude and gold.
Higher temperatures and a drop in seeding could also affect wheat production, though India has robust stocks of the grain.
