Farmers in India, the world’s second-biggest wheat producer, may increase planting starting October because of above-average rainfall, possibly helping the nation gather a record harvest for a second year.
“Rains are good and conditions seem to be very favorable” for wheat plantings this year, Food Secretary T Nanda Kumar said in an interview in New Delhi yesterday.
The country may have harvested a record 78.4 million tonnes of the grain in the year ended June 30, up 3.4 per cent from the previous year, the farm ministry has said.
A bigger harvest may help Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s government head off a food shortage that has stoked inflation to a 13-year high. India imported 1.79 million tonnes 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.
“I don’t see a possibility of any imports until April,” said Kumar, who’s responsible for food policy in the world’s second-most populous country.
Rainfall has been at least 25 per cent above normal in the main wheat-growing states of Uttar Pradesh, Punjab and Haryana in the June 1-August 13 period, according to the weather office. Showers across the nation have been 2 per cent more than average.
“Rains have increased the moisture level in the soil and will encourage farmers to boost sowing,” said MK Dattaraj, president of Roller Flour Millers Federation of India, by phone from Bangalore.
Plentiful rain may also boost the country’s rice output by 5 per cent, Kumar said. Farmers sowed the crop to 28.2 million hectares as of yesterday, compared with 25.6 million hectares a year earlier, according to the farm ministry.
The government may sell as much as 6 million tonnes of wheat from its reserves between September and March to keep domestic prices affordable, Kumar said. State-owned Food Corporation of India (FCI), the country’s biggest buyer of food grains, bought a record 22.5 million tonnes of wheat from farmers this year.
“We have enough stocks in government warehouses, which we always unload if something goes wrong,” Kumar said. “We are going to do that.”
Wheat for December delivery declined as much as 2 per cent to $8.6725 a bushel (one bushel equals 35.23 litres) and stood at $8.73 at 2:48 p.m. New Delhi time. Prices have fallen 35 percent from their record $13.495 a bushel on February 27.
India’s production of food grains such as rice, wheat and lentils in the year ended June probably climbed to 230.7 million tonnes, more than the 227.3 million tonnes estimated in April, farm secretary PK Mishra said July 9.
Wheat, the country’s biggest winter food grain, is planted from October through December. Harvesting starts in March and continues through April.
