In a pre-election year, it is arguably politically rewarding to keep farmers happy with adequate crop procurement and the poor fed on foodgrain freebies. But with rain Gods not necessarily willing and the picture still unpredictable, concerns remain.
The states of Karnataka and Tamil Nadu have already been complaining about inadequate supplies of foodgrains from Centre. The Karnataka government unable to find adequate supplies of rice is now redesigning its electoral promise of supplying 5 kg rice for free per household per month from July 1st .
“The wheat procurement for rabi season has been 26 million tonnes which is only 7 million tonnes higher than last year. There are already curbs in place on the OMSS (Open Market Sales Scheme, a government initiative for selling excess foodgrain stocks in the open market),” says Dr Sukhpal Singh, professor and former chairperson, Centre for Management in Agriculture at the Indian Institute of Management (IIM), Ahmedabad. The concern at the Centre, he feels also “stems from food inflation, which is at about 8 per cent in wheat alone and the foodgrain inflation higher than the overall food inflation.”
The prediction of rainfall so far has been more or less normal except in few parts of north India, which have been receiving a more than usual dose of pre-monsoon rainfall impacting cotton crop. “But the government seems to be cautious as this year there may be lower production of foodgrains, given the unpredictable rains and the El Nino effect,” says Professor Singh.
Adding to the curbs in supplies to states, there are voices of protest on the government supplies of grains to the bio-fuel players making bio-diesel, which may not be the right strategy if food security is the priority.
What about millet, a grain that has been in the news recently? On this Professor Singh explains, “the issue with millet is that the farmers are not quite excited just yet as they are not assured of good returns without an MSP (Minimum Support Price).”
Right now on the overall prospects in agriculture, much depends on how the sowing season will pan out for the Kharif season now.
“Most of the crops in the rain-fed areas will be sown only after the monsoon is over and the expectation is that the government will procure much more aggressively in the next season,” feels Professor Singh. Typically, the buffer stock norm is 7.6 million tonnes rice and 13.8 million tonnes wheat in January and 13 million tonnes rice and 27 million wheat in July.
At present the total stock is 72 million tonnes (58 million tonnes excluding unmilled paddy) and this includes 41 million tonnes and 31 million tonnes wheat (26.7 and 31.2 excluding unmilled paddy) where the wheat stock is the lowest since 2018. Out of the total foodgrain production of over 300 million tonnes, wheat and rice add up to around 250 million tonnes.