Wheat prices in MP to be highest ever

Wheat is likely to attain its highest ever price this year in Madhya Pradesh. Despite acute power outage and fertiliser crisis, a hike in minimum support prices has led to a surge in wheat prices in Madhya Pradesh.

The Madhya Pradesh government has asked its agencies to procure an additional 50,000 metric tonnes of wheat this year. Private players, including ITC, Cargill, Hind Lever and others procured 500,000 quintals roughly, said a government official.

Although the state government has not started additional wheat procurement through its agencies "" Madhya Pradesh Civil Supplies Corporation and Madhya Pradesh State Cooperative Marketing Federation, ""a good response to "Lok-1" variety has been reported in Vidisha, Sehore and Ashta mandis while Bhopal mandi has reportedly received a lukewarm response with a minimum of 2,000-3,000 quintals during the last one week. Lok-1 wheat prices were hovering at Rs 750-1,425 a quintal.

The prices are likely to go up further since private sector atta makers are waiting for arrival of Sharbati variety of wheat which is rich in protein. Sharbati arrivals will begin at the end of this month or first week of April.

Although all districts of the state grow wheat Ashta, Ganjbasoda, Indore, Dewas, Guna, Ashoknagar, Sehore, Vidisha and some parts of Raisen and Sagar districts are know for the high quality Sharbati wheat.

The prices normally start from Rs 1400 per quintal even in open market and cross Rs 2000 per quintal. Last week prices of Sharbati variety prices touched a maximum of Rs 2210.

"The arrival is likely to cross 50 lakh tones despite fertilizer shortage and power outage," a government insider told BS adding, "the last year (2005-06) mandi arrival (all over Madhya Pradesh) stood at 4946281.54 tonnes of the previous year." During the last year Bhopal Mandi had reported 1,748,035.34 tonnes of wheat arrival while Gwalior had reported the lowest arrival of 430888 metric tones during April 2005 to March 2006.

During January this year the state government had admitted a fall in wheat production by 5-15 per cent from the targeted 90 lakh tonnes from 44 lakh hectare acreage.

Shiv Kumar Sharma, general secretary, Bhartiya Kisan Sangh, Madhya Pradesh unit said, "Input cost of wheat in Madhya Pradesh stands at Rs 2,000 per quintal, while farmers get Rs 850 per quintal only. We are going to raise the issue at Jantar Mantar in New Delhi by staging a dharna and demonstration. The developed nations offer maximum subsidy while Indian farmers are committing suicide. As many as 15000 member of our sangh (all of them are farmers) will take part in the demonstration."

The per hectare wheat yield in Madhya stands at 10-12 quintals per acre while the good irrigated crop touches 22 quintals per acre (2.5 acres = 1 hectare).