BHOPAL: Battling against heavy odds, a large number of soy food production units have shut down in the last one year across Madhya Pradesh. A sudden decline in demand because of Covid-19-related issues and shortage of food grade soya bean, 40% to 50% units engaged in soy food production have been forced to shut down.
With more units likely to be affected because of continuous decline in soya production and government’s policy to discourage farmers to cultivate the oilseed, the Soy Food Promotion & Welfare Association (SFPWA) has urged the Centre to import food grade soybean from the US, mainly flavoured soy milk and tofu. While paneer is a milk product, tofu is produced from soy.
SFPWA represents over 3,000 small, medium and largescale units across the country that provide low-cost nutrition under the ‘Poshan Abhiyan’ (Nutrition Mission of India).
Indian soybeans are oil and meal centric. There are no food specialty soybeans grown in the country and that is why supply does not exist. When soybeans are needed for food applications, Indian food producers grade and select the best beans from the lot and sell them at a premium. “Unfortunately, this does not qualify to satisfy the specialty food characteristics and does not match up with the quality standards for producing soy food products”, said SFPWA president K Sarat Chandra Kumar.
“As a result, many soy food processors are now forced to shut down,” said SFPWA vicepresident Sumit Agrawal. “Covid-related issues, including the lockdowns and decline in demand of both tofu and flavoured milk has further aggravated the situation”, he added.
The SFPWA submitted a representation to Prime Minister Narendra Modi and requested the import of food specialty non-GM soybeans from the US on a zero or minimum possible import duty.
Last year, India imported approximately 5 lakh metric tonnes of duty-free soybeans for crush purposes from African countries to meet the growing demand.
“The present rate of 45% basic duty, which comes to 57% after adding other taxes for importing these beans from the US, is not commercially feasible for food processing purposes,” Agrawal said.
