With a production reaching ten times in past five years, India is today the second
largest wheat producer in the whole world. Various studies and
researches show that wheat and wheat flour play an increasingly
important role in the management of India's food economy. Wheat production is about
70 million tonnes per year in India and counts for approximately 12 per cent of
world production. Being the second largest in population, it is also the second
largest in wheat consumption after China, with a huge and growing wheat demand.
Major wheat growing states in India are Uttar Pradesh, Punjab, Haryana, Rajasthan,
Madhya Pradesh, Gujarat and Bihar. All of north is replenished with wheat cultivation.
Wheat has a narrow geographic land base of production as compared to rice or pulses.
Wheat is a temperate crop requiring low temperatures and most of the country is tropical.
The total procurement of wheat ranges from 8 to 14 million tonnes, accounting for about
11 to 20 per cent of the total production. The government system handles only a small
proportion of the total wheat production and private merchants handle the large
proportion.
India's wheat production increase is driven principally by yield
growth and by shift in production from other crops to wheat and an increase in cropping
intensity. Among the major factors that affect yield, fertilizer use appears to have
less effect in recent years while expansion in irrigated and high yielding variety (HYV)
area seem to play a more important role in raising yield. |
