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Commodity |
| CASTOR AND ITS DERIVATIVES |
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| Description | Overview |
History | Cultivation pattern | Castor
producing
countries | Indian castor market |
Major trading centers |
| Description |
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Castor plant is a tropical plant that belongs to the
Euphorbiaceae family and is grown for its non-edible oilseed. In
scientific terms, this plant is also termed as Ricinus communis.
This plant has purple colored stalks and large blue-green colored
leaves of palmate shape. The oil obtained from the seeds of this
plant is a very useful raw material in many industries like soap,
surface coatings, cosmetics, pharmaceuticals, perfumes, greases
and lubricants etc. Also the oil is used in a large number of
medicines. That is why the seeds and oil of this plant make very
important and valuable commodities that are traded in the market.
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Overview
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Castor is a plant that is commercially very important to the
world. Having known that how useful is the oil obtained from it,
it must also be known that the castor seed oil cake is very useful
manure to other crops. This crop needs a tropical type of climate
to develop. That’s why the castor is largely found in the
countries lying in the tropical belt of the world. To derive the
oil from the seeds of the plant, the processes of expression or
decoction are used to press the seeds but the seeds as a whole are
also traded in the market. The seeds generally contain 48% oil
content and the rest becomes the part of oil cake.
World’s average total production of Castor
seed figures around 12.5 lakh tons and is cultivated in more than
30 countries of the world. India is the world’s largest producer
of castor and its derivatives contributing to almost 65% share.
Like wise India is also the leading producer of castor seed oil,
which has it’s annual world production hovering around 5.5 lakh
tons. Due to its end number of uses in various industries, castor
oil has a high level of demand in the world that is still
constantly rising at 3 to 5 % per annum. The major consumer
countries of castor oil with their annual consumption figures are
The world production of this crop is
concentrated in the hands of few countries and that is why there
are just a few exporters of castor oil fulfilling a large level of
demand of the world. The major exporters of castor oil are the
leading producing countries of it namely India, China and Brazil
from which only India has been successfully meeting the domestic
and the world requirements. The country holds a share of 70% in
the total exports. The other two countries have experienced an
increase in their domestic demand and hence are not capable of
exporting a high quantity of oil. The leading countries in the
list of imports of castor oil with their importing figures are
This list shows that the consumption of major
importing countries is wholly dependent on their imports. The
trade of castor oil in the world is estimated at about 2.5 lakh
tons
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History
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The history of castor plant is not
very clear. It is said that this plant
originated in the tropical belt of India and
Africa. The Sanskrit language gave the ancient
name of castor i.e. ‘Eranda’. It was also
called by various other names in different
languages.
Herodotus, the father of history, stated that
the Egyptians used a type of oil to burn their
lamps and for other purposes, which was made by
the seeds of Ricinus in the fourth century BC.
He named it Kiki and till now castor is
cultivated in Greece by the same name.
Theophrastus and Dioscorides, who stated that
the oil of the plant is not worth eating but is
very good if applied externally as a medicine,
gave the detailed description of the plant at
around 1st century. They also stated the process
of extracting oil from the seeds of the plant.
This plant was cultivated till fifteenth century
but due to the negative impacts that it has, it
slowly started becoming unpopular and by the
eighteenth century, its production practically
ceased in Europe and the countries started
fulfilling their requirements by importing the
oil from Jamaica. This is the period in which
its name changed to castor.
The dark side of this plant oil was observed
in the fascist Italy when under the leadership
of Mussolini, castor oil was used to give
punishments to the people who opposed the
established fascist government. They were forced
to consume this oil that in turn lead them to
death.
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| Cultivation
pattern
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Castor is basically a tropical crop and it can
survive in arid conditions. It is an annual crop
and is grown by sowing the seeds in a hot
weather. Castor can survive on various types of
soils but it requires an appropriate and
consistent rainfall.
In India, it is grown as a
khariff crop and is planted generally during the
months of July and August. The crop has a
duration period of 4 to 5 months and is
generally harvested in the months of December
and January. However the sowing and harvesting
periods within the country differ according to
the different regions where the crop is grown.
Also, the region only decides that whether the
crop is to be grown as a sole crop or a mixed
crop. It starts to come to the market from
October and comes till April.
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| Castor
producing countries |
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As already mentioned, Castor is produced
in about 30 countries lying in the tropical belt
of the world. The production of this crop is
concentrated in the hands of a fewer countries and
that is why the world production of castor and its
derivatives is highly fluctuating. Any change in
the trend of the production of any of those
countries leads to change in the level of world
production. The world production of castor seed
hovers around at an average of 12.5 lakh tons and
of castor oil is 5.5 lakh tons. The major producer
countries of castor are
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India
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China
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Brazil
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Paraguay
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Ethiopia
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Philippines
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Russia
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Thailand
The top most country in the list
is India with around 65% of the share in production
followed by China with 23% and Brazil with 7% of
share. The world production levels observed a sharp
rise in the year 2001 which took the level to 17.5
lakh tons but it again fell down due to crop failure.
Since few years, the countries China and Brazil are
having an increase in their domestic consumption
demand and hence are consuming a greater share of
their production and exporting lesser leaving India to
be the dominant player in the international market
Production of
castor in India
India being the largest producer
of the castor contributes to around 65 % of the
world’s total production. India produces around 8
lakh tons of castor seed and around 3 lakh tons of
castor oil. The states in the country that are the
major producers of castor are
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Gujarat
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Andhra Pradesh
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Rajasthan
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Karnataka
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Orissa
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Tamil Nadu
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Maharashtra
The leading of them all is
Gujarat, which contributes to 86% of the total castor
seeds produced in the country. The districts in
Gujarat namely Mehsana, Banaskantha, Sabarkantha,
Gandhinagar, Ahmedabad and Kutch are indulged in the
production of Castor and it produces around .36
million tons. Andhra Pradesh and Rajasthan follow
Gujarat in the production of castor seed with .14 and
.10 million tons respectively. Andhra Pradesh relies
on its districts namely Nalgonda, Mehboobnagar,
Prakasam, Guntur and Ranga Reddy for the production of
the state. The total area on which castor is produced
in India is around 6.25 lakh hectare.
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| Indian
castor market
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Oils and
oilseeds have played an important role in the Indian
economy for a long time. India produces a large
variety of oilseeds including rapeseed, groundnut,
sunflower etc that earn the country huge share of
foreign exchange. Castor seed is a non-edible oilseed
that is produced for its very useful oil.
India is the largest producer of
castor seed and oil. It contributes about 8 lakh tons
of castor seed with an approximate of 65% share and 3
lakh tons of castor oil with an approximate of 51 %
share in the world total production. Gujarat is
India’s leading castor producing state constituting
to around 86% of the country’s total produce. India
nearly consumes ¼th of its total production and
exports the rest but it still is the second largest
consumer in the world. The major sources of demand of
castor oil are the various industries like soap,
lubricant and paint industries and the demand of the
oil is spread all across of country. This crop is
grown over 6.25 lakh hectares of the country.
As it is mentioned before, India
exports 75% of its total production of castor and its
derivatives. India exports around 3 lakh tons of
castor oil that is worth Rs 700 crores and stands at
the top position in the list of major castor oil
exporting countries. India exports castor oil in two
forms namely First Special grade and Castor Oil
Commercial. This figure of exports from India is on a
rising trend and much of the world’s requirements
are fulfilled by India only. The countries that
imports castor oil from India are
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European Union
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USA
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Japan
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China
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Thailand
Though, India is a dominant
player in the world market, it is just a price taker
and not a price setter due to its poor infrastructure
but it has the capability to improve on the exports of
the derivatives of castor and overcome this
limitation.
Market
Influencing Factors
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Production and acreage variations
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Monsoon and rainfall level
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Size of the yield level of other countries
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Prices of other competitive oils
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Demand of the importing countries and domestic demand
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Seasonal price variations
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Hoarding and black-marketing
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Carry over stocks
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Development of new uses of the oil
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| Major
trading centers of castor |
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The
major trading centers of castor and its
derivatives in India are : -
Also,
castor and its derivatives like castor seed,
castor oil and castor oil cake are traded in Indian
commodity exchanges namely, National Commodity
& Derivatives Exchange ltd, Multi Commodity
Exchange of India ltd, National Multi Commodity
Exchange of India ltd, The Bombay Commodity
Exchange Ltd, Mumbai, The Rajkot Seeds oil &
Bullion Merchants` Association Ltd and Ahmedabad
Commodity Exchange Ltd
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