India will soon unveil a blueprint to raise production of basic foods and cut the need for costly imports, a senior farm official said on Tuesday, and aims to lift wheat output by 11 percent over four years. "We will come out with a detailed paper within a week ... to raise production and productivity of major food crops by 2011," Agriculture Commissioner N.B. Singh told Reuters in an interview.
The government, he said, wants to boost wheat output to 80 million tonnes a year, from a harvest of around 73 million tonnes, as it cannot afford to trawl overseas markets every year. "There is no future for India if we start importing food, at least not basic food items like wheat, rice and pulses," he said. "Smaller countries can do it, but not nations like India and China with a billion-plus population.
"We cannot import food articles in large quantities as it affects prices in international markets," Singh said. Rice production should rise to 101 million tonnes by 2011, he added, from around 90 million tonnes now. Meanwhile, India aimed to increase oilseed production to 35 million tonnes and pulses output to 15 million tonnes.
He gave no details on how this would be done. Most Indian farmers cultivate small plots and have limited capital, slowing the spread of new technologies and expensive seeds, farm experts say. Rampant use of fertiliser has spoiled soil texture, leading to low productivity, while only 40 percent of cultivated land is under irrigation.
Despite being the world's second-largest wheat producer, India was forced to import 5.5 million tonnes of the grain in 2006 through a series of tenders after a poor crop and low government inventories pushed prices up.
But each tender fuelled global rates and left India with a hefty import bill.
This year it floated a tender to buy one million tonnes of wheat in April, but then backed off when the quotes came in.
Singh said 138 districts had been identified where wheat output could be raised, 130 where rice production could be improved, and has earmarked 150 districts for enhanced cultivation of pulses.
India has more than 600 districts spread across 29 states. "Rate of growth in wheat production is dismal, less than one percent, while that in rice is around one percent. Pulses production has been stagnating," Singh said. Low productivity remained the main constraint on oilseeds output: "For example, we have 7.5 million hectares under soybean cultivation, but productivity level is at about one tonne per hectare, which can easily go up to 1.5 tonnes."
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