India’s share of foreign value-added content in its agri exports was also low at 3.8% primarily due to high tariffs on agri imports to protect the domestic market. However, India lagged behind as a value-added contributor to world agri exports. While India was the seventh-largest wheat and meslin exporter in 1995, it does not feature in the top 10 list in 2019. In the “meat and edible meat offal" category, India was ranked eighth in the world with a 4% share in global trade. In the largest traded agri product, soya beans, India (0.1%) has a meagre share, but was ranked ninth in the world. It had not featured in the top 10 list in 1995. Private suppliers will inevitably charge more, he added - further driving up prices for bread and other wheat products.India is also the third-largest cotton exporter (7.6%), and the fourth-largest importer (10%) in 2019. So the scenario for wheat is tight," Verma told AFP. "This time we do not hope they can provide for us. "No doubt the major losses will be incurred by big exporters like Cargill, ITC and Glencore, but small traders and farmers will also be impacted."Īnd many businessmen in Khanna say the measure will only have a temporary effect as the rules of supply and demand are unavoidable.įlour mill owner Divender Verma usually obtains his raw materials from government stocks but said they were running at their minimum. "The market was already under stress from the harvest crisis and, without a thought, the government came up with the ban," he said. Now federal and state authorities are cutting procurement for the public distribution system, which provides free and highly subsidised grains to nearly 800 million people, as food security schemes set up during the coronavirus pandemic are cut back.Įven so, retail wheat flour prices are at a 12-year high, and Manish Pajni, head of the Punjab government's grain procurement department in Khanna, has backed the ban, saying wholesale rates could have gone as high as 3,000 rupees without it.īut trader Raj Sood said the government should have adopted a wait and watch policy before abruptly halting exports and causing market turmoil. After producers in Punjab were hit by a heatwave, the national harvest came in at four million tonnes less than expected. Prime Minister Narendra Modi last month even offered to help plug the global wheat deficit and "feed the world".īut extreme weather conditions are becoming more frequent in a phenomenon experts say is driven by climate change. India's wheat exports had been expected to grow in 2022 Sajjad HUSSAIN AFP "We were already hit with production losses this year, and the ban order has made our life difficult." 'Feed the world'īefore the war in Ukraine and the heatwave, India's wheat production of 109 million tonnes in 2021 and seven million tonnes of exports had both been expected to rise this year. The authorities had not consulted anyone and had acted "selfishly", he said. "The price has dropped to the lowest and doesn't even cover our expenses. "This ban has come as a shock," he told AFP. Now he is scrambling to sell his remaining stock. The price fall represents the difference between a bumper payout and heartache, they say.įarmer Navtej Singh saved half his 60-tonne wheat harvest to sell during the lean season, when prices normally rise, and is aghast at the government's decision. India's hundreds of millions of small farmers eke out a borderline existence, subject to the vagaries of the weather, and some in Punjab were already reeling from production losses due to a severe heatwave. The move - along with dwindling global supplies from Russia and Ukraine, both among the world's top five wheat exporters - sent prices to all-time highs on commodity exchanges in Chicago and Europe.īut at Asia's largest grain market in Khanna, in India's breadbasket state of Punjab, values went the other way.Įvery year, thousands of farmers from the wheat-growing region sell their produce at the facility, which is dominated by a dozen giant storage sheds, each the size of a football pitch.įrom 2,300 rupees (about $30) per 100 kilograms of wheat before the export ban, prices slumped to 2,015 rupees - the government-set minimum price at which it buys grain for its vast public distribution system.ĭomestic prices for Indian wheat have slumped to just 2,015 rupees per 100 kilograms, the government-mandated floor Sajjad HUSSAIN AFP India is the world's second-biggest wheat producer, but the government - itself the country's biggest buyer of the crop - said it chose to protect food security for its mammoth population despite inflation concerns. Now Indian farmers and traders are fuming they have been denied a windfall as domestic prices have plummeted.
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