Cereal Killing
CEREAL
KILLING
fnbworld bureau/New Delhi
Can too
much be too less? Certainly, this seems to be the
case for India. A supposedly poor country that
has excess of everything - be it poverty,
wealth, illiteracy or the number of IT tycoons.
Fathom this. The Indian
granaries are overflowing with stocks of wheat
and rice far exceeding their buffer storages.
While this year, wheat production is likely to be
a near-record 78 million tonnes. The wheat stocks
in the central pool on February 1, 2009 are
estimated to be 20.19 million tonnes, while rice
stocks are estimated to be 16.77 million tonnes.
According to a recent editorial in
the Financial Express newspaper, wheat
stocks on April 1, 2009 are expected to be around
10.31 million tonnes, far above the year-ending
buffer requirement of 4.0 million tonnes, while
rice stocks on October 1, 2009 are projected to
be 5.91 million tonnes, more than the norm of 5.2
million tonnes. High inventories have already
created a storage problem for Food Corporation of
India (FCI). The storage will continue to be a
problematic issue when the new rabi procurement
starts from April 1.
The FCI will
need additional storage space for more than 4.3
million tonnes in Punjab and 4.4 million tonnes
in Haryana for the new wheat stocks. The cost of
creating additional sarkari storage is high. The
government should, therefore, first ease the
two-year-long ban on wheat and wheat product
exports and, second, relax the stock limit and
disclosure norms for private traders.
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