The US Department of Agriculture has revised upwards India's rice production forecast by 1.5 million tonnes to 84.5 million tonnes in 2009-10 due to some increase in the paddy acreage in the ongoing rabi season.
"Due to likely higher rabi rice production in response to government's efforts, 2009-10 rice production is revised marginally upward to 84.5 million tonnes," USDA said in a report.
India's rice production will still be lower compared to nearly 100 million tonnes in the previous season.
Of 84.5 million tonnes of rice production in 2009-10 season, the Department has pegged 69.5 million tonnes for kharif season and 15 million tonnes in rabi season.
Noting that although area under rice in the current rabi season is marginally ahead of last year, the report said that it would be difficult to achieve an additional production of 3.5-4 million tonnes.
"The government of India's ambitious target of increasing rabi rice area by 1.2 to 1.5 million hectares over the 2008-09 record level of 5.8 million hectares, to achieve an additional production of 3.5-4 million tonnes appears very difficult due to various agro-climatic and irrigation constraints," it said.
Despite fall in production, the report said it is likely that there will be no need for large scale government rice imports in 2009-10 marketing year (October-September), unless procurement fall significantly or there is poor monsoon again next year.
"If domestic prices achieve parity with international prices, there could be some private rice imports ... The rice import forecast for 2009-10 marketing year remains at 2,00,000 tonnes," the report said.
With an opening stock of 15 million tonnes and likely procurement of 26-27 million tonnes, the government will have a total supply of 42 million tonnes to manage the public distribution system (PDS) in 2009-10 against the normal requirement of around 25 million tonnes, the Department said.
"Even if the government distributed 4-5 million tonnes more rice through PDS or open market sale programme in order to contain price increases, ending stock for 2009-10 marketing year would still be 12 million tonnes, well above the desired October 1 mark."
