“Soyabean contract on NCDEX is witnessing unbridled and excessive speculation in the last few weeks and prices of soyabean have reached Rs.7,250/- per quintal which was just Rs.5,750/- per quintal a month ago. It is hard to fathom what has changed so dramatically in such a short period of time to warrant this unprecedented upswing in prices. This excessive speculative activity has the potential to seriously disturb the smooth functioning of the solvent extraction industry engaged in processing soybeans as the availability of beans has practically dried up all of a sudden leading to all kinds of misinformation being bandied about,” said a release from the Solvent Extraction Association (SEA).
SEA said that the poultry industry which is heavily dependent on soya meal to feed the birds has been driven to the wall and finding it difficult to survive in these Pandemic times. Needless to say soya meal exports will now be out of question as we are heavily out-priced in international markets. In view of the sudden spurt in price of soybean and since its price is rising every day, the arrivals have reduced as the traders and farmers don’t sell in hope of a better price with markets getting spiked every day.
“Moreover, at this price, crushers find a disparity of Rs.4,000/- to Rs.5,000/- per ton of processing and in the process, the availability of soybean meal has reduced dramatically. Price of soymeal, ex-factory has touched more than Rs.60,000/- per tonne from Rs.40,500/- per tonne a month ago and created a panic in the poultry industry which is the major consumer of soymeal. The market is now completely dominated by the speculators and moving upward every day. In the process, both soya crushing and poultry industry are suffering which has the potential of fueling further food inflation in the country,” said SEA.
The industry body has demanded SEBI to probe the situation. “With Futures Market delinked from the physical market, seriously impacting price discovery, we would request SEBI to examine the current scenario and take whatever suitable actions are required to maintain the orderly development of the market. The memories of castor contract imbroglio in the past are too fresh in everyone’s mind and we do not want history getting repeated. We trust our submissions would be taken due notice and immediate remedial actions are initiated to rectify this anomalous situation which has disturbed soya as well as poultry industry,” said the SEA release.
