Early summer sets off wheat procurement

The early onset of summer this year has hastened the ripening and subsequent harvesting of the wheat crop, resulting in an early beginning of procurement operations.

This has, however, adversely affected crop yield, and jeopardised the chances of breaking the 1999-00 wheat production record of 76.3 million tonnes.

While fresh wheat had begun arriving in mandis only around mid-April last year, this time more than 2,61,000 tonnes of newly-harvested grains have already been procured by official agencies under the price support operations.

As private traders are not yet active in mandis, the public agencies have been forced to mop up most of the grains coming to the market.

Of the total wheat arrivals of around 2,75,600 tonnes in mandis of the northern wheat belt, central and state level agencies have bought over 2,61,000 tonnes, according to the latest information available with the Food Corporation of India (FCI). Over 1,78,280 tonnes have been collected in Punjab alone.

As wheat prices have slipped due to fresh supplies coming into the market, official agencies have had to purchase about 1,041 tonnes of wheat in a major consumption centre like Delhi at the minimum support price.

The procurement in Haryana is reported to be around 81,000 tonnes and in Madhya Pradesh around 422 tonnes. The early ripening of the crop is being attributed by agricultural experts to the sudden rise in temperatures after mid-March.

However, this phenomenon has led to the shortening of the period available for the grains to gain weight, curbing the scope for a further increase in crop yield.

Consequently, the overall wheat production this year may remain between 76 and 77 million tonnes, belying the hopes of a bumper harvest. A higher output could have been possible had cooler climate prevailed till the end of March, experts said.

However, the overall procurement of wheat by official agencies is likely to exceed 20 million tonnes, 4 million tonnes higher than last year's total procurement of 15.8 million tonnes. Last year, drought conditions had led to the harvesting of a meagre 65.1 million tonnes.

The procurement of rice from the last kharif crop and the current rabi paddy crop, which normally continues throughout the year thanks to the levy on the rice mills, has already crossed 18.75 million tonnes this year, against merely 16.4 million tonnes in the corresponding period last year.

The final figure is anticipated to exceed 20 million tonnes this year, pushing up the total wheat and rice procurement for the central grain pool to over 40 million tonnes.

The FCI and state-level agencies have geared up their machinery for market intervention to prevent a crash in wheat prices as the market arrivals pick up in the days to come.

These agencies have, together, set up over 7,500 procurement centres in major wheat surplus areas of Punjab,. Haryana, Uttar Pradesh and some other states.

Control rooms have also been established at the state and central level to monitor the wheat procurement operations.

In Uttar Pradesh and Haryana, a bulk of the crop has already been harvested, though most of it is still lying unthreshed in the fields.