India is likely to harvest bumper wheat crop this year on the back of higher acreage and good crop health so far, Union Agriculture Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan said on Friday. Though he did not share the likely production estimate, industry experts hope that it may not be lower than 109 million tonnes (mt).
India had produced a record 113.29 mt of wheat, which is grown in winter and harvested during March-April, in 2023-24 and the government has set a production target of 115 mt this year. Sowing data show that wheat acreage was at record 324.38 lakh hectare (lh) until February 4 in the ongoing rabi season compared with a total coverage of 318.33 lh in the entire season last year.
Agriculture Secretary Devesh Chaturvedi said the crop condition is good so far with normal day-night temperature.
Capping stock limit
On Thursday, the Department of Food and Public Distribution tightened the stock limit on wheat for wholesalers, retailers and processors to keep prices under check and asserted that there is ample stock of food grain in the country. The government tightened the wheat stock limit reducing the maximum quantity traders/wholesaler can keep at any pint of time to 250 tonnes from earlier 1,000 tonnes.
Wheat prices in government weekly auction on February 19 spiked abruptly to very high in most of the States, due to the relaxation granted to individual processor to lift higher quantity. On Wednesday, the highest bid price in the FCI’s e-auction in Uttar Pradesh was ₹3,159/quintal and the lowest was ₹2,958. As many as 168 buyers had bid above ₹3,000 per quintal, while only 30 processors had bid below ₹3,000.
Of the 4 lakh tonnes (lt) wheat offered in the auction, as much as 3,99,940 tonnes were sold out on February 19 against 2,93,110 tonnes out of 3 lt on February 12. The individual cap was raised to 400 tonnes per bidder from 150 tonnes.
Supporting chilli farmers
Chouhan also said the Centre will provide financial support to red chilli farmers of Andhra Pradesh and a decision will be taken soon in this regard. His announcement came a day after the Chief Minister arrived in Delhi to meet Chouhan on February 20.
The Agriculture Minister said the Centre will provide necessary training to farmers in the State under the Mission for Integrated Development of Horticulture (MIDH) in order to boost exports of red chilli. He said the government will intervene to buy the produce under the market intervene scheme (MIS).
MIS is meant for perishable agriculture/horticulture commodities such as tomato, onion and potato, which are not covered under MSP (minimum support price). The minister said under MIS, in place of physical procurement, States may have an option now to make differential payment between Market Intervention Price (MIP) and selling price, subject to coverage of 25 per cent of production of crops and maximum price difference up to 25 per cent of MIP.
For instance, if the farm-gate price of a horticulture produce falls to ₹2.50/kg against the MIP fixed at ₹4, ₹1/kg (25 per cent of MIP) will be subsidised under the MIS as the maximum differential price allowed.
The minister also said he would be attending the dialogue with farmers, scheduled on Saturday, in Chandigarh. He said that he has been meeting farmers, farmer organisations in Delhi as well as in other places whenever he has been visiting States. “In fact the idea of a separate Makhana Board emerged during my interaction with Makhana farmers of Bihar. I have also interacted with betelnut and pomegranate farmers,” he said.
Further, Chouhan informed the media about the next disbursal event of 19th installment of PM-Kisan scheme to farmers in Bhagalpur, Bihar by Prime Minister Narendra Modi on February 23. Over ₹22,000 crore will be transferred directly to the bank accounts of about 9.80 crore farmers across the country, he said adding the total disbursal will reach ₹3.68 lakh crore since the scheme was rolled out in 2019. The Centre pays ₹6,000/year in three equal instalment of ₹2,000 to each eligible land-owning farmer.