Soyabean production in the country grew by more than 23.68% last year as a result of better use of technology and availability of quality seeds to farmers. The soyabean production rose to 9.4 million tonne during October 2006-September 2007 from 7.6 million tonne achieved in the corresponding period in the previous year.
“We have been conducting frontline demonstration of better agricultural technology in collaboration with Indian Council for Agricultural Research to farmers for increasing the production,” DR Kalra, executive eirector, Soyabean Processor Association of India (SOPA), told FE. SOPA conducted more than 750 demonstrations with the farmers in the major soyabean producing states such as Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra and Rajasthan
However, there is still mismatch between production and processing capacities in the country. India has capacity to process 15 million tonne of soyabean. According to SOPA, more than 9 million hectares of land is under the soyabean cultivation and the yield is around 1 tonne per hectare. “Average per hectare yield of soyabean is one of the lowest in the world, through better technology and seeds, we can achieve an average per hectare yield of more 2 tonnes per hectare,” Kalra said.
According to SOPA, India’s 5.2 million tonne of edible oil imports would be drastically reduced with the increase in the per hectare yield of soyabean. Out of 90 lakh hectares of land under soyabean cultivation, more than 4 million hectares are in Madhya Pradesh while 2.7 million hectares and 0.7 million hectares in Maharashtra and Rajasthan respectively. Other states, which are actively promoting soyabean cultivation, are Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Tamil Nadu, Uttar Pradesh and Chhattisgarh.
Soyabean is the single largest oilseed produced in the world. Out of the total estimated production of 320 million tonne of oilseeds annually, soyabean production alone stands at 180 million tonne.