India raises wheat procurement target 15% to support rain-hit farmers

States seek higher procurement as unseasonal rains damage crops

The central government has now decided to purchase 15 per cent more wheat from farmers this season at 34.5 million tonnes, against the earlier target of 30 million tonnes, to support farmers who have suffered damage to their standing crop due to unseasonal rains and also keeping in mind requests from states, Union Food Secretary Sanjeev Chopra said today.

 

Addressing a function to release the annual wheat survey of the Roller Flour Millers' Federation of India, Chopra said that state-wise procurement of wheat from Madhya Pradesh is now expected to be 10 million tonnes against an earlier 7.8 million tonnes, Uttar Pradesh 2.5 million tonnes as against an earlier estimated 1 million tonnes, Rajasthan 2.35 million tonnes as against an earlier estimated 2 million tonnes, Uttarakhand 5,000 tonnes as against an earlier estimated 1,000 tonnes, and also some wheat will come from Delhi this year after a gap of three years.

   

This, he said, together takes the total to 34.5 million tonnes, up from 30 million tonnes.

 

Chopra said that wheat procurement quality norms in almost all major growing states of Punjab, Haryana, MP, and Rajasthan have been relaxed to enable higher purchases from farmers.

 

He said this increased procurement will add to the opening wheat stocks of around 22 million tonnes for 2026-27, which traders said will mean that actual availability will be close to 56.5 million tonnes, while PDS requirement for 2026-27 is a maximum of 20 million tonnes.

 

“This effectively means that by the end of next season, India should be sitting on closing stocks of somewhere 30–35 million tonnes, which would be huge considering that the buffer requirement is just around 7.5 million tonnes,” a senior industry official who was present at the conference also said.

 

Chopra, meanwhile, also said that wheat production for the 2025-26 crop year is likely to come in between 110 and 120 million tonnes due to crop damage from unseasonal rainfall and hailstorms in key growing states. The agriculture ministry earlier estimated the production at 120.21 million tonnes, up from 117.94 million tonnes in the previous year, before the adverse weather struck.

 

The Agriwatch Annual Wheat Survey for 2025-26 projected the all-India wheat production at 110.65 million tonnes, slightly above the 109.63 million tonnes produced in 2024-25, after factoring in recent weather damage.

 

“We had earlier, in February 2026, hoped that production would be close to 115.7 million tonnes, but due to the unseasonal rains it has come down to 110.65 million tonnes, which is marginally more than last year,” Nalin Rawal, director, consulting and GIS services, Agriwatch, told Business Standard.

 

He said though there has been some marginal loss in yield, it has been compensated by higher acreage, or else the drop in output could have been sharper.