India's oilmeal exports fell 2.6 percent in July, the fourth straight fall since the start of the current fiscal year, as high seed prices crimped crushing margins and a supply squeeze due to drought further hit supplies. India, Asia's top supplier of oilmeal, faces its second drought in just four years and the government has launched contingency plans which include extra fodder supplies. Th e milk industry has called for oilmeal exports to be banned.
Total oilmeal exports in July fell to 274,635 tonnes from a year earlier, led by a sharp drop in overseas sales of rapeseed meal, the Solvent Extractors' Association of India said in a statement on Tuesday. "Margins on crushing are minimal because of rising prices of seed in the domestic market. Overseas sales of rapeseed and soyameal are expected to remain lower in the coming months as well," said Ankita Parekh, analyst at Nirmal Bang, a brokerage firm.
Rapeseed meal exports dropped 56 percent to 38,084 tonnes in July from June. Sales have declined 57 percent from a year ago. Dairy producers have called for a stop to overseas sales as desperate farmers move their animals to government-supplied fodder camps in the worst-hit regions of the country.
"Oilmeal exports are pushing the prices of animal feed in the country and we have requested the government to immediately ban its exports," said R S Sodhi, managing director of Gujarat Co-operative Milk Marketing Federation. Domestic prices of soyameal have more than doubled in the last three months as supplies tighten. Soyameal sales, which make up the bulk of exports, fell 7 percent to 168,341 tonnes in July on a month-on-month comparison. But they were up more than 20 percent from a year ago due to continuing robust demand from Iran.
"Soyabean supplies are limited and going to remain thin until October, when the new crop comes into the market," said Parekh. The government has cancelled import duty on oil-cakes, a move aimed at easing supplies to the domestic feed industry and producers of edible oils.
India imports coconut cake in small quantities, which is used for making compound feed for animals. Iran, South Korea and Vietnam were the top three buyers of Indian oilmeal in July. Overseas sales of oilmeals during April-July fell nearly 5 percent to 1.3 million tonnes, the data showed.