Edible oils prices hike setups records of 11 year

From January 2021, we all have seen there is a regular price hike seems in edible oils. During the Covid pandemic, there is a steep hike in every product like petrol, cylinder gases, grains etc as you can say that the inflation increasing much more in India. India’s population already are suffering from financial crisis due to the increase in unemployment as well as laying off the employees in the companies in organised sector as well as un-organised sector.

India’s requirement and production

If we see the requirement of edible oils in India in FY 2019-2020 is nearly about 24 Miliion Tonnes while the production is neary about 10-12 Million tonnes, we can cleary watch that we are producing just of half of our requirements. So to fulfill this requirements India needs to import a large of amount edibles from other countries. In 2019-2020, approximately 56% edible oils are imported in India.

Import of Edible oils

India imports soybean oils, palm oils, and sunflower oils from different countries.

Soyabean oil- Argentina and Brazil

Palm Oil- Malaysia and Indonesia

Sunflower- Argentina and Ukraine

Reasons due to which prices are affecting

1. Production of biofuel– Prices of edibles oil are rising in the international market due to the production of the bio-fuels from vegetable oil in main importing countries i.e. Argentina, Brazil , US etc

2. Stocking of Edible oils- Some countries started to build stock of edible oils to earn profit, as demand of edible oils in the international market is increasing.

3. Labour Crisis- During Covid Pandemic, the labour crisis arose in the Malaysia, this effects the production and cost of it.

4. Impact of La Nino- Geographical aspects on the yielding of Palm and soya producing areas.

5. Export Duties Increased– Malaysia and Indonesia increased export duties on the edible oils as there’s big financial crisis due to COVID 19.