Sesame Market Bulletin in the Gambia and Senegal, November 29th 2012

Hello everybody,

Sesame harvest is near its end in Central and Eastern Senegal and is going on in the Gambia and in southern Senegal.

In the Gambia, farm gate prices vary between 17 and 18 dalasis, and foreign buyers who are coming have begun to provide prefinancing payments to banabanas (local traders) in Senegal in order to collect more product.

In Senegal, this week, sesame sales are in strong increase.  Hundreds of tons of sesame have begun to be commercialized in Fatick and Kaffrine.

In these areas, the mainly practised price is 350 FCFA (21.49 Dalasis). This price is offered in the region of Tambacounda but a lot fewer sesame has been commercialised by now.

In southern Senegal where buyers arrive generally later, very few sales have been made.

In Khombole, in the region of Thies, the sesame cleaning unit of the African Natural Ingredient (ANI) buys the white sesame from the factory at 27.64 Dalasis. Many groupings of producers have now signed contracts to deliver to it their production.  This factory allows Senegalese sesame exports to gain much added value by offering on the international market cleaned sesame of high quality.
SESAME MARKET IN WEST AFRICA

In Burkina Faso, sesame sales are higher now that the harvest is almost done all over the country. Farm gate prices are slightly higher and vary between 20.27 and 24.57 Dalasis/kg (330 and 400 FCFA/kg) for the white sesame. In the capital Ouagadougou, the wholesale price moves very quickly and is now rising from 28.25 Dalasis/kg to 32.55 Dalasis/kg (460 to 530 FCFA/kg).

SESAME INTERNATIONAL MARKET

The international sesame market is more and more active and prices, from different origins, have risen these last days.

In Ethiopia, the volumes traded on the Ethiopian Commodity Exchange are still very high with more than 10,000 tons sold this week again. Prices continue then to rise and are currently around 1380 USD/t (41.8 dalasis/kg) for the cleaned white sesame.

In India, prices are sky rocketing.  Within a week, there was a 13% rise in prices on the NCDEX stock exchange, reaching more than 1950 USD/t (59 dalasis/kg). At the same time, many buyers, mainly westerners who traditionally were supplying from India are now looking for new suppliers in Africa.  In India, prices should then be falling back within the next weeks due to a decline of orders for this origin.

The overall prices of oilseed products are still on a slight decline.  The gap becomes exceptionally large.

ANALYSTS VIEW

When opportunity of selling to at least 21.5 Dalasis/kg will be available, we advise farmers to sell 25% (a bag out of four) of their production in order to satisfy the next weeks’ needs and mitigate risk taking.  For the time being, they can keep the rest of their production so that they could benefit from a probable rise in prices within the next months.