SUNFLOWER PRICES TO HOVER AROUND MSP

Sunflower is one of the important oilseed crops in India and popularly known as “Surajmukhi”. Sunflower oil is used as cooking oil in different recipes. Its importance increases as sunflower oil is considered as heart friendly oil.

The world area under sunflower was 23.71 million hectares and production was 32.39 million tonne, accounting for 8.5 per cent of the total oilseeds production. Sunflower seed production in India during 2012-2013 was 6.15 lakh tonne and the same was 6.20 lakh tonne during 2011-12. Ukraine, Argentina, Russia, China and Turkey are the major producers of sunflower seeds globally.  The main importing countries of sunflower oil from Ukraine are India - 30%, Egypt - 16%, EU - 16-18% and Turkey - 11%. Ukraine exported 3.3 million MT of sunflower oil followed by Argentina (1.1 million MT), Russia (0.8 million MT) and India (0.002 million MT) during 2012-13.

Karnataka is the leading producer of sunflower with the highest production of 3.04 lakh tones from an area of 7.94 lakh hectares followed by Andhra Pradesh, Maharashtra, Bihar, Haryana and Tamil Nadu. The major trading centers for sunflower oil are Mumbai, Chennai and Hyderabad. In Karnataka, Chitradurga district has the largest area under sunflower followed by Davanagere. 

Market sources have confirmed that farmers are interested in knowing prices that might prevail for sunflower during harvest months of November, December 2013 so that they can take appropriate marketing decision on the same.

To help the farmers to take a right marketing decision of sunflower the Market Intelligence Cell (MIC) functioning in UAS Bangalore collected and analyzed the modal prices of sunflower that prevailed in Chitradurga market during the last fourteen years. Based on the analysis and Market survey, it is forecasted that Kharif season sunflower would fetch a modal price around Rs. 3300–3500/quintal during harvest (November-December 2013). This forecast prevails for current market sentiments import and export policy. Government of India has announced a minimum support price for sunflower at Rs. 3700 per quintal for kharif 2013-14. Farmers are advised to sell sunflower upon harvest as the prices are unlikely to increase during the forecast period.

Research team

Dr.C.P.Gracy, Jyoti Naik, Nagashree,N.

Department of Agricultural marketing co-operation and business Management

UAS, GKVK, Bangalore-65