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Journalism of Courage
The Centre is visibly relieved after the recent spell of rain. Agriculture Minister Sharad Pawar today said the situation has substantially improved with the August rains and foodgrain production could even exceed last year’s 212 million tonnes.
‘‘With this spell of rain, we will be able to by and large make up for the erratic monsoon performance in July and if Rabi output is as expected, overall production could even exceed that of last year,’’ he said. The only region which was still a matter of concern was West Uttar Pradesh. But to be on the safe side, the Government has decided there would be no foodgrain export for at least a year.
‘‘There are sufficient stocks at hand but we do not want to take a risk with exports,’’ said Pawar. He said for the next year, there should be no export of wheat and ordinary rice.
The total foodstocks as on July 1 this year was 299 lakh tonnes including 191.52 lakh tonnes wheat and 107.6 lakh tonnes rice against a total buffer requirement of 243 lakh tonnes. ‘‘We are preparing a new policy for agricultural exports. A meeting was held today in which representatives of Food and Agriculture Ministry participated as well,’’ he said.
In response to delayed rains in July, the Centre had moved foodstock requirement for three months to states that showed symptoms of drought. ‘‘This is one of the largest movements between states,’’ he said. While in Madhya Pradesh, there were foodstocks for three-and-half months, in Rajasthan it was over six months and in Maharashtra the availability was little over two-and-half months.
