Deficient rains and drought conditions will bring down India’s castorseed crop by 20 per cent to 11.26 lakh tonnes with reduced yield at 15.20 kilograms per hectare for the year 2018-19, a study conducted by AgriWatch revealed on Saturday.

Last year, India’s castorseed crop was estimated at 14.16 lakh tonnes with an average yield of 1,740 kg per hectare. Notably, the total area under castor fell by 7 per cent to 7,69,570 hectares from 8,21,600 hectares as per the government’s estimates for the 2017-18 kharif season.

The crop estimates are based on two rounds of field surveys and remote sensing analysis. Agriwatch conducted these surveys in castor-growing regions in Gujarat, Rajasthan, Andhra Pradesh, Telangana and other States.

Notably, the crop estimates, released during the 17th Global Castor Conference here, are much lower than the first advance estimates of the Central government for the oilseed at 15.2 lakh for 2018-19.

According to the Agriwatch study, the total area under castor in Gujarat - the largest grower for this year is estimated at 5,54,160 hectares, about 6 per cent lower than Government’s estimate of be around 5,33,800 hectares as per the government’s estimates. The production in the state will fall by about 22 per cent to 9,34,680 lakh tonnes as against 12,00,000 tonnes. Due to reduced growth of the plants and less availability of water for irrigation will pull down the average yield for the State by about 14 per cent to 1,751 kg per hectare as against 2029 kg reported last year.

For Rajasthan also, the acreage will fall by about 4 per cent to 1,29,300 hectare as per the AgriWatch study, while output is expected to be around 147,000 tonnes in 2018-19, about 11.4 per cent lower than last year.

In the States of Andhra Pradesh and Telangana, the sowing will fall by 6 per cent to 54,420 hectares as compared to government estimates of 57,930 hectares in 2017-18. Total production for the two States is estimated to be at 23,000 tonnes in 2018-19, lower from 27,000 tons last year.

Atul Chaturvedi, president, Solvent Extractors Association, underlined the need to ramp up castor production in the country by yield improvement. “Although, India is dominating in the world supply, the price cannot be jacked up as these could rebounce as end users may switch over to substitute products and we lose the market forever. The solution lies in rise in production of castor seed so that India can maintain regular supply of castor oil at a reasonable price to international markets.”