Unseasonal rain won’t impact wheat output much: Official | India News

NEW DELHI: Wheat production this year is likely to be 1-2 million tonnes (MTs) less than the current estimate due to unseasonal rain and hailstorms, a senior government official said on Friday. However, the overall production will be nearly 5-6 MTs more last year and with export restrictions in place, there will be no shortage of the foodgrain, the official added.
While the government has estimated that the wheat production will be around 112 MT, a study commissioned by the Roller Flour Millers Federation of India and conducted by Agriwatch has projected the total yield at 103 MT after accounting for the recent unseasonal rains.
Nalin Rawal, director consulting and GIS service at Agriwatch, said the production this year will be higher than last year’s (97.7 MT) and the acreage has also increased. He added that though they had expected the crop to be more than 104 MT, they had to revise the estimate downward after surveying the impact of recent spells of rain and hail storms across major wheat producing states.
Participating in the release of the study, Subodh Kumar Singh, additional secretary in the food ministry, said, “While these estimates are different from the government’s, two trends are common in both. There is an increase in acreage and there will be 5-5.5 MT additional wheat this year,” he said.
Singh said with the continuing ban on the export of wheat, they are confident of the government procuring enough of the winter crop to meet the statutory requirement and to have surplus stock for market intervention in case of a spike in prices of this essential commodity.
Speaking at the event, CMD of Food Corporation of India Ashok K Meena said they have procured nearly 7 lakh tonnes of wheat so far compared to barely 2 lakh tonnes for the corresponding period last year. The government has set the target to procure 34.2 MT of wheat from the farmers at MSP.
“It is important for all of us — government and the private sector — to work together to ensure that prices of wheat and atta remain stable, despite global headwinds. We have support for higher production estimates too with us,” he said.
Government officials said because of the recent rains there is an issue of luster loss, which the government is addressing. They added that while this impacts their merchantability, this doesn’t have any bearing on the quality of the crop.