Robust crop may ease wheat supplies
By Sandip Das
Amid concerns over wheat stocks plummeting to a seven-year-low, the government expects the current rabi crop to be robust, and promising an all-time output of 114 million tonne (MT) is anticipated.
This allays fears about shortage of the grain pushing the retail prices higher.
Wheat prices have remained elevated for more than a year now, although in the last few months due to a series of steps taken by the government, including aggressive open market sales, and imposition of stock limits, prices on year have fallen sharply.
“There have been no reports of yellow rust disease in crops and conducive weather conditions so far, the standing wheat crops at present looks ‘promising’, Gyanendra Singh, Director, Indian Institute of Wheat and Barley Research (IIWBR), based in Karnal, Haryana, told FE.
Singh said that the harvesting in Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, Gujarat and Maharashtra will be commencing from the middle of next month while the usual in Punjab, Haryana and Uttar Pradesh it would commence from the end of March.
Food Secretary Sanjeev Chopra has said that there has not been any premature warming up of weather so far. “If the weather continues to remain so for the next 10-15 days we can expect a bumper harvest of wheat,” Chopra said.
The government has set a higher wheat production target of a record 114 MT for the 2023-24 crop year (July-June) against an estimated output of 110.5 MT in 2022-23.
The food ministry has called a meeting of officials from key grain producing states on February 28 to chalk out a strategy for wheat procurement for the next season.
Agriculture ministry officials said they are closely monitoring the crop conditions and regular crop advisory has been issued for the farmers.
Despite having a normal sowing of crops, yield in wheat was impacted because of excessive flower stage in March in 2022 and unseasonal rains just prior to harvesting in March in 2023.
As per the agriculture ministry latest data, the wheat sowing this season (2023-224) was at a record 34 million hectare (mh) against 33.75 mh reported during the same period previous season. Wheat sowing so far is above the last five-year average of 30.73 mh.
A bumper harvest of wheat this season would give a boost to the government’s procurement drive as well as stocks which have declined to seven years low at 11.23 MT at present.
Current wheat stock is against the buffer of 7.4 MT for April 1.
Last season (2023-24), FCI and agencies had purchased 26 MT of wheat under minimum support price (MSP) operations.
The centre had asked key wheat-growing states including Uttar Pradesh, Punjab, Haryana, Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan to commence registration of farmers and setting targets for procurement under the MSP operations early.
To curb the spike in prices, the government has been selling wheat in the open market from its stock since June and so far offloaded a record 8.89 MT of grain till last week.
This article has been republished from The Financial Express.