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Prices of groundnut oil and sunflower oil in the State are set to increase this year because of a shortfall in production, according to a price-forecast exercise undertaken by the University of Agricultural Sciences-Bangalore.
The harvest price-forecast survey undertaken by the Agricultural Market Intelligence Cell of the UAS-B's Department of Agricultural Marketing and Co-operation indicates an increase in prices for the sunflower and groundnut (with shell) crops, whose harvest has started.
Production has fallen as growers replace sunflower with high-value crops such as Bt cotton and maize and groundnut with red gram because of their rising costs of production and vulnerability to diseases. According to the forecast report, prices of sunflower seeds are likely to be Rs 2,900-3,200 a quintal by January-end against Rs 2,600-2,700 now.
Speaking to Business Line , Professor Gracy, Principal Investigator of the Market Intelligence Cell, felt that farmers should hold their sunflower crops till January-end for better prices.
Groundnut
Similarly, groundnut prices are estimated to rise to Rs 2,600-2,700 a quintal of pod (with shell) compared with Rs 2,300-2,400 now. But Professor Gracy is of the view that farmers should hold only the quality groundnut crop and dispose of the average ones.
Groundnut production suffered a set back as 30 per cent of the crop was damaged because of drought during the critical crop growth period and untimely rains during harvest season.
The sunflower production was hit as 30 per cent of the farmers growing the crop shifted to other crops in the State's sunflower belt of Davangere, as the prices remained low in the last several seasons.
Similarly, some of the groundnut growers too shifted to other crops. The price-forecast survey for sunflower was undertaken in the State's leading market of Davangere, while that for groundnut was done in the markets of Chitradurga and Challakere.
The indicative prices under the survey were determined with the help of a mathematical model and survey of traders and farmers. The intention is to help farmers by updating them on market trends.
Karnataka leads the country in sunflower production accounting at 3.16 lakh tonnes from an area of 8.07 lakh hectares. The area under groundnut is around 8.6 lakh hectares with a production of six lakh tonnes.
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