New Summer Crop : Gujarat sowing figures have been released but we do not find them accurate enough, maybe as there are Elections in India in April-May and Govt bodies are busy with that. Overall market from news we predict a crop of 40-50K in Gujarat, 25% of which should be Black Sesame. Sowing was expected to be higher due to higher prices than previous year, but water supply and thus yield is a question mark.
One more issue is that due to delayed winter, sowing started late and thus harvest would be June 1st half. This is very close to the monsoon timings. Any Rains during harvest would cause damage to quantity as well as quality.
Crop in Tanzania-Mozambique is expected to be similar to previous year, although we are still waiting for news about damage due to the recent cyclone in Mozambique.
Demand : Sesame seeds demand has been better in the last month due to Ramadan and low stocks at buying countries. China has started covering slowly from African countries and demand is expected to increase as and when the Stocks in China go below 120K. Current stocks are around 150K.
Supply : Supply in India, obviously, is very low due to high priced stocks in market and overall low crop of October, 2018. West African countries sold a lot of quantity in last 2 months and thus are not very aggressive recently.
Outlook : Stable till new May-June harvest in Gujarat, Tanzania and Mozambique.
Source : Indian Suppliers