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Time has come to divert some acreage from staple cereals like wheat and rice to other crops, says Surinder Sud Has the foodgrain production in 1999-2000 been underestimated? This is the poser discomfiting the food ministry which is finding the task of managing its overflowing granaries difficult to surmount. This seems indeed be so at least in the case of wheat, going by the circumstantial evidence. Market availability as well as price trends bear this out. It is the first time that wheat prices in the north-western wheat bowl are falling, instead of rising, in the post-marketing season. Fresh stocks are pouring into mandis despite the highest-ever procurement of over 16 million tonne of wheat by the public agencies. In fact, even in a big consumption centre like Delhi, the prices have fallen below the statutory minimum level in a season when they should normally have started looking up. The present rates range from Rs 555 to Rs 570 a quintal, against the minimum support price of Rs 580. The trend in other metropolitan centres is not very different. In Mumbai, for instance, the average wholesale wheat price fell last week to Rs 695 from Rs 712 in the previous week. The agriculture ministry, which compiles the crop production numbers, has itself revised the wheat output figures thrice already. Beginning from an estimate of 68.74 million tonne in January-end, at the completion of wheat sowing, it upped it gradually to 70.10 million tonne towards the end of March and to 74.25 million tonne by June-end. Experts feel another upwards revision may not be ruled out. That would also push up the overall foodgrain output assessment for 1999-2000 from the current estimation of 205.91 million tonne. The present downtrend in wheat prices can, of course, be attributed to offloading of stocks by the trade in the wake of the government’s move to sell foodgrains in the open market at lower prices. But this can only be partly true. For, the traders were not much in evidence during the rabi marketing season this year. Of the total officially recorded market arrivals of around 17.5 million tonne, over 16 million tonne landed in the official coffers. Presuming that the traders bought directly from the farmers, by-passing the mandi system, to avoid payment of taxes, the total transactions could not have been too large to precipitate such a price crash. Moreover, the traders would not have waited for the prices to fall below their purchase prices to get rid of their stocks. The bulk of the unsold market surplus of wheat remained, obviously, with the farmers who this time seemed to be in for heavy losses and utter disappointment for not getting higher prices in the lean season. This should teach an important lesson to the farmers and the government alike. It is that the time has come to divert some acreage from staple cereals like wheat and rice to other crops. The foodgrain production need no longer be the yardstick for measuring agricultural progress. This mind-set has to change. By continuing to harp on doubling food production, the government is exposing its paucity of understanding of the ground realities. If you cannot manage the present level of output, what would you by doubling it further? In any case, the wheat-rice rotation, which is behind the present problem of plenty, is unsustainable in the area where the bulk of the unmanageable surplus is confined — the north-western region of Punjab, Haryana, western Uttar Pradesh and eastern Rajasthan. This exhaustive cropping sequence is causing depletion and deterioration of natural resources, including soil and underground water. Soil fertility is on the decline due to depletion of available potassium and several crucial micro-nutrients. Land is going out of cultivation due to water-logging and salinity. Weeds, diseases and pests are multiplying and becoming increasingly uncontrollable. Unless agriculture in these states is diversified urgently, this region would soon transform from granary to the graveyard of grains. Source: Business Standard
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