Flour millers’ survey predicts better wheat production over last year

By Sanjeeb Mukherjee

A survey commissioned by the Roller Flour Millers’ Federation of India forecasts a 3 per cent increase in India’s wheat production for the ongoing 2024-25 crop marketing year that started on April 1, projecting a total of 105.79 million tonnes (mt) compared to last year’s 102.9 mt.

The estimate by the flour millers is in divergence with the projections made by the Central government which feels that total wheat production in the 2024-25 marketing year could be around 112.04 mt, which is 1.39 per cent more than the last year.

The survey was done by Agriwatch in nine states across 84 districts of the country.

It said that while the overall acreage of the crop is up by 1 per cent as compared to last year, the average yields have gone up by almost 2 per cent leading to a comparatively better crop.

State-wise, the survey found that among the main growing states of wheat, the crop acreage was down this year in Maharashtra, Rajasthan and Gujarat. But it rose in Haryana and Uttar Pradesh.

Meanwhile, sources said that the government wheat procurement drive for the 2024-25 crop marketing season has started on a strong note with the Food Corporation of India (FCI) managing to procure around 1 mt of wheat in the first few days of the new season. During the corresponding period of last year, it was around 0.7 mt.

India has targeted to procure around 31-32 mt of wheat, which will be significantly higher than the actual procurement of around 26 mt last year.

Good procurement has become imperative to boost its inventories which had dipped to multi-year lows due to poor procurement in the last few years, as farmers preferred to sell their produce to private buyers for higher prices rather than the government.

As of March 1 2024, wheat stocks in the central pool were recorded at a seven-year low of 9.7 mt due to the below par procurement.

Last year, the stocks on March 1, 2023, stood at around 11.67 mt. Wheat stocks as of April 1 of each year should be around 7.5 mt, according to the buffer and strategic reserve norms.

The last time wheat stocks were below the March 1 levels was back in 2017. It had then dropped to 9.42 mt.

To replenish its inventories, the Central government has issued informal advisories to all private players to refrain from buying from mandis till June and also directed all traders and merchants to declare their wheat stocks every week to the government to prevent hoarding.

The weather meanwhile, has not acted as a dampener for the crop. According to the latest assessment by the India Meteorological Department (IMD), the standing wheat crop in most growing states is likely to evade the impact of the impending extreme heat wave. Harvesting is scheduled to start within the next 15 days, and the crop is in the grain filling and maturing stage.

This is the stage when even if day time temperatures cross 37 degrees Celsius, it will not impact the standing crop.

“Only in Madhya Pradesh, the heatwave is expected over the next week or so when the maximum temperature is expected to touch 42 degrees Celsius. But there too, not much impact is seen as almost 90 per cent of the standing crop has been harvested. In Punjab, Haryana and western UP where the crop is yet to be harvested, no heatwave is expected in the next 15-20 days,” IMD’s Director General Mrutyunjay Mohapatra recently said at a press briefing.

This article has been republished from the Business Standard.