Where does sesame seed come from?

In 2024 India produced 866,111 tonnes, 13% of the world's 6.7 million tonnes (FAOSTAT). Myanmar followed with 11%, then Sudan (9.4%), Nigeria (6.7%) and Pakistan (6.5%). The top five account for 46%, 69 countries reported output and 27% came from outside the top ten. World production changed +8% over the ten years to 2024 and +5% on the previous year.

That is a far flatter distribution than most traded crops, and it splits into two blocs. The Asian one, India, Myanmar, Pakistan, China and Bangladesh, grows mostly for domestic pressing and food. The African one, Sudan, Nigeria, Ethiopia, Tanzania, Chad, Burkina Faso and Niger, grows largely for export, much of it from rainfed smallholdings on the Sahel and the Sudanese clay plains.

Brazil is the outlier. It took sesame up as a rotation crop on the cerrado over the past decade and grows it mechanically at a scale no traditional origin matches. Almost everywhere else the crop is sown, weeded and cut by hand, which caps yields and makes planting a decision about available labor rather than about machinery.

India was the largest exporter of sesame seed (HS 1207) in 2024 with 7.4% of world export value, ahead of Niger (7.3%), on world trade of $7.9 billion (CEPII BACI). China was the largest importer with 27%.

The customs line is broader than the crop: HS 1207 covers several oilseeds alongside sesame, so the world value on this line overstates sesame by itself. The rankings within it still describe the trade, because sesame dominates the flows of the countries named.

What stands out is how concentrated demand is against how dispersed supply is. China takes 27% of imports and also appears among exporters with 5.7%, buying African seed to crush and selling processed product on. Turkey (Türkiye) and Japan are the other large structural buyers, and India and Turkey (Türkiye) both import and export.

There is no futures market and no free public benchmark price for sesame, so this site quotes none. Seed is bought at village markets and roadside assembly points by traders, aggregated by exporters and sold on contract to crushers and food manufacturers. Ethiopia sells much of its crop through a national commodity exchange with defined grades and delivery centres, which is unusual; most origins have no organized marketplace at all.

Contracts specify origin, color, purity, oil content and free fatty acid, and whitish hulled seed for confectionery is worth far more than mixed brown seed for crushing. Buyers in China and Japan apply their own standards, and residue testing has been part of the price since European controls tightened.

One country takes over a quarter of world imports on this line and crushes most of it for oil, so its stock position and crushing margins set the tone for African origins. When Chinese buyers step back, seed piles up at African ports with nowhere else to go in that volume.

Sesame is sown on the rains and matures in three to four months, so one wet season decides the crop. It tolerates drought better than most crops, but late rain at harvest splits capsules and stains the seed, cutting it out of the premium hulled market.

Much of African production comes from areas with fragile security. Sudan's crop grows in Gedaref and Kassala and leaves through Port Sudan, and the fighting that began in 2023 disrupted planting, finance and the route to the coast in one of the largest exporting countries.

Sesame carries salmonella and pesticide risk, and consignments are tested at the border. European emergency controls introduced after ethylene oxide was found in Indian seed in 2020 brought certification and heavy sampling, raising cost and cutting volumes from that origin.

Sesame became a declarable major allergen in the United States from 2023, pushing bakeries and manufacturers into segregated handling or out of using it. Against that, tahini and hummus demand in Europe and North America has grown steadily for years.

Sesame is an annual herb sown at the start of the rains and cut three to four months later. Seed forms in capsules up the stem, and in traditional varieties those capsules shatter when ripe and spill the seed. That trait shapes everything: the crop is cut slightly early, stacked in stooks to dry, then shaken over cloth to release the seed, which is why the harvest is almost entirely manual.

Seed is cleaned, destoned and graded on color and purity, then takes one of two paths. Seed for confectionery, tahini and bakery is hulled, by soaking and abrasion or by alkali treatment, then washed, dried and optically sorted into white grades. Seed for oil is crushed as it is, usually after roasting, because the roasted flavour is the point of Asian sesame oil.

Crushing is by expeller press for the roasted culinary oil and by press or solvent for cheaper refined grades. Sesame oil carries natural antioxidants and resists rancidity better than most seed oils, so it stores and ships without special handling.

The crop divides between oil and whole seed. Roasted sesame oil is a flavouring in East Asian cooking rather than a frying medium, while pressed and refined sesame oil is a cooking oil in India and the Middle East. Whole seed goes on bread, into confectionery such as halva and sesame snaps, and is ground into tahini, the base of hummus.

By-products are useful rather than incidental. The meal left after crushing is a high-protein animal feed, and hulls go to feed and fuel. Sesamin and sesamolin extracted from the oil are sold as antioxidant ingredients, and sesame oil has long been used as a carrier oil in pharmaceuticals and cosmetics.

The chain starts with a very large number of very small farms and narrows quickly. Traders assemble seed at rural markets, exporters clean and bag it inland or at a port, and it leaves in containers. Hulling and roasting plants sit in the buying countries rather than at origin, so most value beyond cleaning is added abroad.

Port Sudan, Lagos, Dar es Salaam and Djibouti for Ethiopian seed are the pinch points, and long inland haulage is the larger cost for landlocked Chad, Niger and Burkina Faso. The seed itself is dry and stable and needs no cold chain.

The structural risks are quality and security. A contaminant finding can shut an origin out of a market within weeks, and because so much production sits where conflict, currency controls and export bans are ordinary hazards, supply moves for political reasons as often as agronomic ones.