India is an edible oil deficit country and is capable of both using and exporting soya meal.
The sugar mills in India do not have profitability currently and many are having solvency and liquidity problems.
They need a special package to:
– Incentivise sugarcane produce to soyabean by themselves but also in neighbouring villages with small holders.
– Sugar mills are free from March to September, so that they can devote attention to the edible oilseed.
Edible oil production in India can go up dramatically. Sugar mills can be incentivised to have the crushing units of soya beans at the same quantum as they do the sugarcane.
Soya bean crushing at the rate of 2000 metric tons per day for 24 hours brings in a huge economy of scale. The supply chain must be managed with assured supply as in sugarcane now.
The soya bean crushing can begin after the sugarcane crushing is over. As there would be a value chain, the producer companies can be encouraged to bring the soya bean into silos or warehouses and store it under a warehouse receipt system and sales can happen progressively.
Beginning from 1st of March till the 30th of September or till availability, these giant mills can turn out both soya bean oil, soya bean by-products and soya meal extractions, which can then meet the requirements of the feed industry in India. Soya meal is an attractive export item as well as used as animal feed ingredient.
Sugarcane mills have got the expertise in handling all aspects and Government with State Governments can give an investment promotion scheme with farmers as shareholders and stake holders through the Producer Companies.
India is a land where the efficiency of capital must go high. It does not need to have sugar inventory when there is a formal exchange process of internationalisation of the sugar economy.
At least 6 terminals can be made at major and minor ports in order to both import and export sugar in as much as that, if there is a requirement that Indian consumption goes up, the markets get equalised in the world. But India is at an advantage with its vast consumption.
Encouragement of use of sugar in processed food with other Indian surpluses like pulses or ground nuts or similar is necessary. At least 400 million people can have better standards of life.
The State Governments should encourage moderate shift from rice to groundnuts in both the Kharif and Rabi crops, so that the protein needs of the population grow as the consumption grows. Protein needs should get more importance than carbohydrates.
India has many rice varieties and rice crops. Soya bean can be grown only during the Kharif crop.
Therefore, rice surplus states like U.P, Haryana and Punjab need to push rice farmers to grow soya beans.
An aggressive drive can generate 10 million metric tonnes of soya bean production additional in India instead of rice and sugarcane.
Therefore, the agricultural economy should get into a mixed crop tactic as Dr Swaminathan said – Multi-cropping is the best insurance.
Each farm should be encouraged to have at least 3 crops by rotation – pulses, oilseeds sugarcane – which are then aligned by market information and artificial intelligence.
The sum of the total harvest will be predictable if the farmer is identified from the ground, right up to the market.
It is ideal if soya bean crushing is handled at the junctions of National Highways and Railways, so that the evacuation of the soya meal can be by containers or wagons to various destinations to which soya bean meal is now exported from India.
The ecology and efficiency of all soya bean meal manufacturers are high. The Indian shipping industry and transportation industry can expand from dedicated port terminals by having a logistics critical path from all sugar mills as well as from soya bean extraction mills, within a range of 50 kilometres.
What India needs now are proteins. Suitable proteins are available in the soya bean. There are different types of soya beans in the world, and in India, optimisation of soya bean cultivation can be an extension that existing rice and sugarcane farmers can be incentivised to produce soya bean.
There is a short-term surplus in sugar and rice in India. The strategy for India should be to increase the domestic economy to be competitive in the World Economy.
