Area sown under kharif oilseed crop for the new season is 16.47 million hectare against 15.23 million hectare normal and 14.88 million hectare in the previous year, higher by about 8% as compared to area covered during the same period a year ago.
Prospect of a good agricultural crops production has brightened in 2007-08 because of good rainfall and satisfactory progress of kharif sowing. During the south-west monsoon season (June-September), the country as a whole has received an area-weighted rainfall of 565 millimeters.
This is 6.6% more than the normal long period average (LPA), AR Sharma, president, SEA said. ?The acreage and the sowing is satisfactory in most of the oilseed growing states except some minor damage reports in Uttar Pradesh, eastern MP, Marathwada and the north-east due to floods and heavy showers,? Sharma said.
The Cotton Advisory Board has recently predicted that India will be producing 31 million bales in 2007-08 (280 million in last year) as area is expected to increase from 9.2 million hectares to 9.5 million hectares this year. Also, area under Bt cotton has gone up 55% compared to 37% last year.
It is observed that in Bt cotton, cottonseed oil recovery is higher by about 1-2% compared to normal cotton variety. This would further boost the cottonseed oil production in India and first time the country will be producing over 1.0 million tonne of cottonseed oil. Thus cottonseed oil will be the fourth most important oil in terms of domestic oil production after rape, groundnut and soya oils, he said.