Wheat and chaff

Wheat industry watchers have been perplexed ever since Union agriculture minister Sharad Pawar decided to start importing wheat early this year despite the fact that stocks were still over the buffer level and procurement was to begin in April. A Down To Earth investigation points to the involvement of the us.

In July 2005, when India's wheat procurement season was over, we had a stock of 14.7 million tonnes (mt), just 0.4 mt above the buffer stock requirement. This was far less than the 5 mt of excess stock the country had in July 2004. The sharp decline was despite the fact that wheat production remained unchanged at 72 mt between 2003-2004 and 2004-2005. Privatisation of procurement had led to a fall in state procurement. Still, there was no call to hit the panic button and imports were not, at least for public consumption, even a remote option.

Nevertheless, as early as on April 17, 2005, the onset of the procurement season, Hardip Singh, president of Cargill India, made the astonishing claim that India would soon begin importing wheat. Not long after, in July 2005, the us Department of Agriculture (usda) released a previously classified report that was even more specific in its prediction than Singh. The report (