India, the world’s second-biggest wheat grower, aims to produce a record quantity of grain for the second year by encouraging farmers to use high-yield seeds and early sowing.
The government has set a target of 78.5 million tonnes (MT), compared with an estimated 78.4 MT this year, the farm ministry said on its website on Monday. Wheat, sowed in October and harvested in March and April, accounts for more than 70 per cent of the nation’s winter-sown grain output.
A record harvest may help the country head off a food shortage that pushed inflation to a 16-year high last month. India imported 1.79 MT of wheat since July 2007 to build its stockpiles, helping fuel last year’s 77 per cent gain in prices on the Chicago Board of Trade.
Wheat has fallen 46 per cent from a record $13.495 a bushel set on February 27 after growers from Australia to India seeded more of the grain to capitalise on prices. Wheat for December delivery rose as much as 2.2 per cent to $7.3375 in after-hours trading on the Chicago Board of Trade on Monday.
India will use 909,000 tonnes of wheat from its reserves to ensure domestic supplies are adequate during the festival season that starts next month, the government said last week.
Soil fertility low
Wheat yields have saturated in the biggest-growing regions because of a drop in soil fertility, the ministry said. Farmers produce an average of between 2.5-3 tonnes of wheat per hectare (2.5 acres), compared with about 5 tonnes in the US and China.
Output can be increased in other regions using high quality seeds and completing sowing by the end of November, it said.
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