Rapeseed: Extraction

Mustard's cousin, sown before winter in Europe

Rapeseed is a brassica, a relative of mustard and cabbage. Europe grows mainly winter rapeseed, sown in late summer and harvested the next July. Canada and Australia grow spring canola. Canola is rapeseed bred in Canada to contain little erucic acid and glucosinolates, making the oil edible and the meal palatable. Crushers press and solvent-extract the oil-rich seed. The by-product meal is a valued protein feed. The crop rotates well with wheat and barley.

Rapeseed is a temperate oilseed of the cabbage family. The main routes are mechanised canola on large farms in Canada and Australia, intensive winter rapeseed in the EU and China, and smallholder rabi mustard in India, grown on residual moisture or limited irrigation. Seed is then crushed: large solvent-extraction plants dominate in Canada, the EU and China, while India has thousands of small expellers (kolhus) making cold-pressed mustard oil plus solvent plants that extract the remaining oil from expeller cake. Yields range from 3.3 t/ha in Germany to 1.4 t/ha in India.

Methods compared

How each method works

Large farms sow herbicide-tolerant hybrid canola, usually in rotation with wheat and other cereals, and swath or straight-combine it in late summer. Farmers deliver to elevators owned by Viterra (Bunge), Richardson, Cargill and others, which export the seed through Vancouver or supply domestic crushers that sell oil to the US and meal to feed mills.

Large exportable surplus and GM-hybrid yields, but prairie drought can cut output by a quarter (14.2 Mt in 2021/22 against 19.5 Mt in 2020/21, USDA PSD) and China trade disputes hit prices.

Sown in late summer, the crop overwinters and is harvested in early summer. High fertiliser and crop-protection use give the highest yields. Most EU seed goes to local crushers whose oil feeds biodiesel plants; China grows winter rapeseed in the Yangtze basin for domestic oil.

High yield and close to crushers, but pest pressure rose after EU limits on neonicotinoid seed treatments, and demand depends on biofuel policy.

Farmers sow Brassica juncea in October-November on conserved moisture or with one or two irrigations, often as a lower-water alternative to wheat. Seed is sold in mandis or at MSP through NAFED and state agencies. The National Mission on Edible Oils-Oilseeds aims to raise oilseed output.

Needs little water and fits rice-wheat rotations, but yields are less than half EU levels and output swings with winter frost and rain.

Large plants pre-press flaked seed and then extract remaining oil with hexane, giving about 41% oil and 58% meal. India's small expeller units cold-press mustard seed for kachi ghani oil and sell the oil-rich cake to solvent plants for a second extraction.

Two valuable products from one seed, but crush margins depend on both oil and meal prices.

Who does it: global

Who does it: India

India is the world's fourth-largest rapeseed producer and is close to self-sufficient in mustard seed, but mustard oil (about 4.1 Mt a year, USDA) covers only part of edible oil demand; India imported 16.3 Mt of vegetable oils in 2024-25 (SEA). The National Mission on Edible Oils-Oilseeds (Rs 10,103 crore, 2024-25 to 2030-31) targets 69.7 Mt of primary oilseeds by 2030-31.