Soybean area in India to shrink in favor of sugarcane

overseas purchases of palm, soybean and sunflower oils, analysts said. Soybean prices have been under pressure in recent months on the back of a record global harvest, prompting farmers to switch to other crops. The government has set a minimum purchase price of 4,892 rupees ($57.29) per 100 kg for soybeans from farmers, but domestic prices have been trading between 10% and 20% below that since the start of the new marketing year in October 2024. The poultry industry is a major consumer of soybean meal in India, but in the last two years it has been replacing soybean meal with distillers dry grains with solubles (DDGS), a by-product of ethanol production, as it is more than 30% cheaper than soybean meal, said BV Mehta, executive director of the Edible Oils Association of India (SEA). “The new soybean crop is likely to be significantly lower than last year’s. This will obviously force India to increase imports of edible oils,” he said. India sources palm oil mainly from Indonesia ...