Wheat production in the country will be less due to unseasonal rains: There may be a decrease of 10 to 20 lakh tonnes

Due to unseasonal rains, there may be a reduction of 10 to 20 lakh tonnes in wheat production in the country this year. An official of the Food Corporation of India (FCI) has given this information on Friday. A similar estimate was also made in a private study conducted by the flour mill owners. However, according to the government official, the total production will still be up to 112 million tonnes as per the earlier estimates. In the estimate released in February, the government had said that this time more than 11 crores, 20 lakh tonnes of wheat would be produced.
The study, conducted by Agriwatch for Indian Agribusiness Systems Ltd and Roller Flour Millers, said wheat production would remain at 100.3 million tonnes despite unseasonal rains. Before the unseasonal rains, this production was estimated to be around 10 crores, 40 lakh tonnes. This means that this year unseasonal rains may reduce wheat production by 10 to 13 lakh tonnes.
Central government officials are claiming that there will not be any significant reduction in wheat production due to unseasonal rains. Subedh Singh, additional secretary in the food ministry, says, “Whichever figure you take, we are confident that wheat production this year will be about 50 to 55 lakh tonnes more than last year even after unseasonal rains.”
He said there was a difference between the wheat production estimated by the government and the industry last year. However, there are some similarities in crop estimates this year. The first is that the area under wheat has increased by 3-5%, the second is that unseasonal rains and hailstorms will cause a loss of about 10 to 20 lakh tonnes of production and the third is that this year 50-55 lakh tonnes will be grown as compared to last year. tons of additional production. In 2022-23, the government had estimated 10 crores, 77 lakh tonnes of wheat production.
Subedh Singh informed that due to restrictions on exports and higher annual production, the total availability of wheat in the market this year was about 10 million tonnes more than in the previous financial year.
On the other hand, Food Corporation of India Chairman Ashok Meena said that the procurement of wheat is going on at the minimum support price (MSP) of the government and so far about 7 lakh tonnes have been procured, which is 2 lakh tonnes as compared to the same period last year. tons more.