Date:09/02/2008 URL: http://www.thehindu.com/2008/02/09/stories/2008020950770500.htm

Karnataka - Bangalore

FCI happy with wheat stock

Special Correspondent

Rice stock to be 27.5 million tonnes by September
‘Climate change may hurt food production’

— Photo: G.P. Sampath Kumar

ALL SMILES: Union Minister Akhilesh Prasad Singh (third from left) releasing a souvenir during an international seminar on wheat in Bangalore on Friday. KPCL Chairman P.B. Mahishi, organising committee chairman Vinod Kapoor, and Wheat Products Promotion Society chairman B. Shantilal are seen.

BANGALORE: The country’s wheat stocks will touch 15 million tonnes in 2008-09, according to Alok Sinha, Chairman and Managing Director of Food Corporation of India (FCI).

Speaking to presspersons on the sidelines of international seminar on “Wheat and wheat products: Vision 2020” here on Friday, he said the buffer stock of wheat would be 5.3 million tonnes as on April 1. FCI was expected to procure 11.5 million tonnes of wheat in the coming three-four months. About 15 million tonnes of grains would be made available for distribution to the poor under the public distribution system (PDS) in 2008-09. “As on today, we have stock of 8.5 million tonnes of wheat. We will not force farmers to sell their produce to us. If prices are good in the open market, farmers can sell their produce,” the FCI official said.

Mr. Sinha said that rice stocks would reach from 26.5 to 27.5 million tonnes by end-September against 25 million tonnes a year ago.

“There is no problem at all with regard to rice. We will be in a comfortable position. The country’s current rice stocks were at 18 million tonnes, four lakh tonnes more than last year. About 21 lakh tonnes of rice a month required for distribution under the PDS,” he said.

Director of Central Food Technological Research Institute V. Prakash said value addition of wheat products and its by-products was needed. The Centre should take a re-look at the farm policy to expand area and productivity of wheat, he said.

Vinod Kapoor, chairman, seminar organising committee, said per capita production of foodgrains had dropped by 17 kg in the last decade.

G. Chandrashekar, Associate Editor, The Hindu Business Line, said agricultural commodity prices were volatile on account of various factors in the domestic and international markets. Climate change and global warming would gradually hurt agriculture.

Speaking on “Global grain market dynamics: Can India respond?” Mr. Chandrashekar said the country would import wheat and rice if steps were not taken to increase the area under crops and productivity.

P.B. Mahishi, Chairman, Karnataka Power Corporation, in his key note address, stressed the need for expansion of area under wheat which required less water.