Soybean Complex at a Crossroads as Imports Rise and Exports Weaken by Amit Gupta, Kedia Advisory
India’s soybean market in 2025 is passing through a phase of divergence, where domestic acreage reduction, record edible oil imports, and weakening meal exports are pulling the sector in different directions. The kharif sowing season has shown a notable decline in soybean coverage, with 120.44 lakh hectares planted in 2025–26 compared to 126.26 lakh hectares in 2024–25. This contraction of 5.82 lakh hectares, or 4.6 percent year-on-year, reflects a structural shift as farmers moved land into maize, rice, and sugarcane, which together gained nearly 20 lakh hectares. The reduction in soybean acreage is significant because the crop accounts for nearly two-thirds of India’s kharif oilseed area, implying tighter seed availability for crushing in the upcoming season.
On the import side, soybean oil has taken center stage as India moved to secure its edible oil requirements amidst lower domestic oilseed availability. From November 2024 to August 2025, India imported 3.89 million tonnes of crude soybean oil, making it one of the largest components of its 12.37 million tonnes of total edible oil imports during the period. Argentina dominated India’s soybean oil supply with 2.39 million tonnes, while Brazil supplied 0.89 million tonnes, Russia 0.19 million tonnes, and Ukraine around 16,000 tonnes. The dominance of Argentina became even more evident in September 2025 when India executed an unprecedented deal for 300,000 tonnes of soyoil within just two trading days, immediately after Buenos Aires scrapped export taxes on soy products. The move provided Indian refiners a cost advantage of nearly $50 per tonne compared with palm oil, and the speed of execution highlighted the responsiveness of Indian buyers to sudden shifts in global policy. This surge in imports also indicated that palm oil shipments from Indonesia and Malaysia might face reduced offtake in the near term as India capitalizes on cheaper soybean oil.
In stark contrast to the strength in soyoil imports, soybean meal exports have been under pressure in the current year. Between April and August 2025, India exported 7.57 lakh tonnes of soybean meal, down from 8.49 lakh tonnes during the same period in 2024, representing a contraction of 10.8 percent. The month-wise data highlights the extent of this decline. Exports in April 2025 stood at 2.30 lakh tonnes but steadily weakened in subsequent months, falling to 1.56 lakh tonnes in May, 1.05 lakh tonnes in June, and 1.83 lakh tonnes in July. The sharpest drop came in August, when exports plunged to just 80,233 tonnes compared to 1.56 lakh tonnes in August 2024, a year-on-year fall of almost 49 percent. This August weakness was the largest monthly contraction seen in years, reflecting both tight availability and a lack of competitiveness in international feed markets.
The reasons behind the weak export performance are multi-dimensional. Domestically, soybean prices remained firm due to lower sowing, compressing crushing margins and leaving a smaller exportable surplus of meal. At the same time, international buyers in Southeast Asia increasingly substituted soybean meal with alternative protein sources such as distillers dried grains with solubles (DDGS), which became more available with rising ethanol production in the U.S. and South America. Indian soymeal, quoted at $480–500 per tonne FOB, was unable to match the lower landed cost of South American offerings, especially when freight advantages also worked against Indian suppliers. As a result, India’s traditional feed buyers in Vietnam, Thailand, and other Asian destinations shifted demand elsewhere, accelerating the fall in August shipments.
The broader oilmeal export basket confirms this trend of weakness in soymeal. India exported a total of 17.93 lakh tonnes of oilmeals between April and August 2025, down from 18.68 lakh tonnes a year earlier, a decline of 4 percent. Within this, rapeseed meal exports actually rose from 8.84 lakh tonnes to 9.15 lakh tonnes, an increase of 3.5 percent, with China emerging as a key buyer at 3.68 lakh tonnes. Castor seed meal exports also remained relatively stable at 1.06 lakh tonnes. This meant that soybean meal was the weak link, dragging down the overall performance of oilmeal exports and losing share to other protein sources. The data highlights how soybean meal, once India’s strongest export meal, has now ceded ground to rapeseed meal because of both cost competitiveness and global demand realignment.
The global backdrop, as reported by the USDA in September 2025, further compounds the situation. World oilseed production for 2025–26 is now projected at 691.55 million tonnes, with higher rapeseed output in Canada and increased soybean production in Russia offsetting declines in India. Global soybean oil import demand was revised downward to 11.94 million tonnes, consistent with India’s four-month low imports of 367,917 tonnes in August. Meanwhile, sunflower oil imports are projected to rise to 12.17 million tonnes globally, highlighting a shift in trade flows that may influence India’s procurement strategy going forward.
Overall, India’s soybean market is being defined by three key data trends: a reduction in sowing area by 5.83 lakh hectares, record soybean oil imports of 3.89 million tonnes in just ten months with additional bulk buying from Argentina, and a 10.8 percent decline in soybean meal exports to 7.57 lakh tonnes in the April–August period. These shifts paint a picture of a market caught between domestic supply constraints and global demand realignments. The imbalance is clearly visible in the meal segment, where August exports nearly halved, while the oil segment continues to surge on opportunistic imports.
Against this backdrop, the short-term outlook for soybean remains marginally bullish. Spot soybean in Indore currently trades at Rs.4,530 per quintal, and with the festival season expected to drive edible oil demand, prices are projected to test Rs.4,650/Rs.4,680 per quintal, provided strong support at Rs.4,350 holds firm. The trajectory will remain highly sensitive to harvest arrivals in October and November, as well as Argentina’s policy stance on export levies, but the balance of probabilities points to a modestly upward bias in the near term.
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