WHEAT production

With a production reaching ten times in past five years, India is today the second largest wheat producer in the whole world. Various studies and researches show that wheat and wheat flour play an increasingly important role in the management of India’s food economy. Wheat production is about 70 million tonnes per year in India and counts for approximately 12 per cent of world production. Being the second largest in population, it is also the second largest in wheat consumption after China, with a huge and growing wheat demand.

Production area

Major wheat growing states in India are Uttar Pradesh, Punjab, Haryana, Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, Gujarat and Bihar. All of north is replenished with wheat cultivation. Wheat has a narrow geographic land base of production as compared to rice or pulses. Wheat is a temperate crop requiring low temperatures and most of the country is tropical.

Growth promotional activities

The total procurement of wheat ranges from 8 to 14 million tonnes, accounting for about 11 to 20 per cent of the total production. The government system handles only a small proportion of the total wheat production and private merchants handle the large proportion. Yet the support price operation and the PDS play a significant role in maintaining reasonable and stable food grain prices in the country for both the producers and consumersIndia’s wheat production increase is driven principally by yield growth and by shift in production from other crops to wheat and an increase in cropping intensity. Among the major factors that affect yield, fertilizer use appears to have less effect in recent years while expansion in irrigated and high yielding variety (HYV) area seem to play a more important role in raising yield. Depending on the population and income growth, poverty alleviation and the rate of urbanization, a demand-supply gap may open at a rate of about 1 to 2 per cent per year which is equivalent to 0.7 to 1.4 million tonnes of wheat, growing larger over the years. Promoting rapid economic development and income growth in India which embraces the poor and particularly the rural poor, may lead to considerable growth in demand for wheat and thus an expansion in trade opportunities.