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Early trends are showing an uptick in paddy procurement during the current kharif marketing season and the Centre expects procurement of the foodgrain by the Food Corporation of India (FCI) and other agencies to top last year’s levels.
“Paddy procurement is going to be on track for kharif. It will be 900 lakh tonnes plus paddy. In rice terms, it will be 610–615 lakh tonnes. We will be, in fact, crossing last year’s procurement of 600 lakh tonnes of rice. This is despite the impact of uneven rains on paddy acreages,“ said Sudhanshu Pandey, Union Food Secretary, in Bengaluru on Friday.
Buys in TN
He was speaking to businessline on the sidelines after inaugurating the Central Warehousing Corporation’s Grade A warehouse in the IT SEZ near Bengaluru International Airport.
The paddy procurement has started for the kharif marketing season 2022–23 recently in States such as Tamil Nadu, Punjab, and Haryana.
Ashok Meena, Food Corporation of India’s Chairman and Managing Director, said initial procurement trends indicate that the procurement has been higher by about 20 per cent so far since the process began compared with the same period last year. While the exact details are not available, procurement stood at 1.99 lakh tonnes in Tamil Nadu as on September 30.
“Farmers will be assured of MSP. As the systems are becoming more and more predictable for the farmers, even though the overall production might fluctuate, the procurement that the Government will be doing will be much higher. The government is ensuring that the money goes directly into the bank account. Therefore, the procurement of rice is going to be slightly more than what it was last year,” Meena said.
Lower acreage
The area under paddy during this kharif was 402.88 lakh hectares (lh) lower than last year’s 423.04 lakh hectares due to deficient rains in key growing areas in eastern Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Jharkhand and West Bengal. However, the paddy coverage was marginally higher than the normal area of 398.25 lh.
The Ministry of Agriculture and Farmers Welfare, in its first advance estimate, has pegged the rice output at 104.99 million tonnes, lower than the fourth advance estimate of 111.76 million tonnes last year. The MSP for the paddy has been raised to ₹2,040 a quintal for the common variety and ₹2,060 for the Grade A this year, against ₹1,940 and 1,960 last year.
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