{"id":196132,"date":"2022-07-18T19:11:52","date_gmt":"2022-07-18T13:41:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.forumias.com\/?p=196132"},"modified":"2022-07-18T19:11:52","modified_gmt":"2022-07-18T13:41:52","slug":"declining-wheat-inventories-grain-of-the-matter","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/declining-wheat-inventories-grain-of-the-matter\/","title":{"rendered":"Declining wheat inventories: Grain of the matter"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Source<\/strong>: The post is based on an article \u201cGrain of the matter\u201d published in the Business Standard on 17th<\/sup> July 2022.<\/p>\n

Syllabus:<\/strong> GS3 – Public Distribution System – Objectives, Functioning, Limitations, Revamping; Issues of Buffer Stocks and Food Security;\u00a0; Major Crops – Cropping Patterns in various parts of the country,<\/p>\n

Relevance: <\/strong>Buffer stock and related issues<\/p>\n

News<\/strong>: There has been a sharp decline in the government\u2019s wheat\u00a0inventories<\/strong> to 28.5 million tonnes this year. This is the lowest since 2008.<\/p>\n

Reasons for sharp decline of inventories<\/strong><\/h5>\n

About 1.8mn tonnes of wheat was sent to about a dozen countries, including Bangladesh and Afghanistan, even after the imposition of the ban on wheat exports.<\/p>\n

Why should the declining inventories be not a matter of concern?<\/strong><\/p>\n

The inventory is still about a million tonnes <\/strong>higher than the stocks needed to be held as buffer and strategic reserves for food security\u00a0purposes.<\/p>\n

Besides, there is no dearth of wheat<\/strong> in the market despite record exports and liberal shipments to other countries on humanitarian grounds.<\/p>\n

The prices of wheat in the open market, too, have remained fairly stable. It is another indication of the comfortable supply position.<\/p>\n

What are the reasons for the depletion of wheat holdings?<\/strong><\/h5>\n

The intense heat<\/strong> in March 2022 caused the grains to shrivel and ripen prematurely without attaining full mass. Therefore, there was a fall in crop output. For example, Wheat output, anticipated originally to be over 109 million tonnes, fell to 106.4 million tonnes.<\/p>\n

The government\u2019s procurement of wheat dipped by a huge 60% due to lower market arrivals.<\/strong> It happened because private traders, and notably exporters, purchased wheat at rates higher than the minimum support prices (MSPs).<\/p>\n

Why is the reduction in the government\u2019s grain stockholding a welcome development?<\/strong><\/h5>\n

From the economic standpoint, this would help bring down the cost the Food Corporation of India (FCI) incurs on holding surplus food stocks.<\/p>\n

Way Forward<\/strong><\/h5>\n

Instead of wheat, the government can help the countries facing acute food insecurity<\/strong> through rice export.<\/p>\n

(1) The government can prune<\/strong> the inventories of rice<\/strong>, which, at present, are estimated at more than double the requirement of the public distribution system (PDS) and food-based welfare programmes. The government can sell stock of rice in the domestic market. The private traders can export.<\/p>\n

(2) The World Trade Organization (WTO) rules disallows exports from the public food stocks<\/strong>. Therefore, India can plea to WTO to waive this restriction in view of the current global food crisis.<\/p>\n

The cropping patterns<\/strong> should be diversified from the paddy crop<\/strong> to other crops, especially oilseeds, for which the country is still heavily dependent on imports.<\/p>\n

Some states, including Punjab<\/strong> and Haryana<\/strong>, have already begun offering cash incentives<\/strong> to farmers to replace paddy<\/strong> with other crops. There is scope for similar moves in many other states as well.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Source: The post is based on an article \u201cGrain of the matter\u201d published in the Business Standard on 17th July 2022. Syllabus: GS3 – Public Distribution System – Objectives, Functioning, Limitations, Revamping; Issues of Buffer Stocks and Food Security;\u00a0; Major Crops – Cropping Patterns in various parts of the country, Relevance: Buffer stock and related… Continue reading Declining wheat inventories: Grain of the matter<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10328,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1230,9],"tags":[10503,216],"class_list":["post-196132","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-9-pm-daily-articles","category-public","tag-business-standard","tag-gs-paper-3","entry"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","views":{"total":0,"cached_at":"","cached_date":1704910031},"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/196132","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10328"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=196132"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/196132\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=196132"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=196132"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=196132"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}