May 22, 2007

India's oilseeds production sees 16 percent growth in 2007/2008

India's oilseeds output is expecting an increase by 16 percent at 26.9 million tonnes in the fiscal year compared to the 23.3 million tonnes produced in 2006/2007, according to Centre for Monitoring Indian Economy (CMIE).

In its May review of the Indian economy, CMIE said apart from yield, area under oilseed cultivation is expected to rise by 1.3 million to 28 million hectares in 2007/2008.

The expected increase for oilseeds production would largely contribute toward a higher 5.5 per cent growth in non-food crop production during 2007-08 as against one percent decline in 2006-07, the report said.

The projected increase in oilseed is seen to push crop production by 2.6 percent in 2007/2008 as compared to 0.3 percent increase estimated for 2006/2007.

On the other hand, India's 2007/2008 foodgrain production is predicted to grow by a marginal 0.4 percent as rice yields is seen to decline to 91 million tonnes from previous year's level while wheat is estimated to jump by 74 million tonnes from 73.7 million tonnes in 2006/2007.

The overall growth for India's agriculture, including crops, livestock, fishing and forestry and logging, is pegged to three percent in 2007/2008 as against 1.3 percent growth estimated for the fiscal year 2006-07, it said.

Real growth in livestock is placed at four percent while a 23 percent share in overall agriculture sector, the contribution of livestock would be 0.94 per cent in the overall growth of the sector. Fishing, forestry and logging segment account for nine percent share in overall agriculture and with a projected growth of three percent, its contribution comes to 0.25 percent.

The anticipation of normal rainfall in the coming monsoon season and comfortable reservoir level are the two major factors in favour of agricultural sector this year, CMIE report said.

According to India's Meteorological Department forecast for 2007, southwest monsoon rainfall during June-September 2007 would be 95 percent of the long period average.

Live storage of 76 reservoirs in the country was at 46.35 billion cubic metres till April 12, 2007, which was 43 per cent more than the average of last 10 years, the report said.