The condition of the wheat crop seems to be better than last year, although concerns about the damaging impact of high temperature on productivity still persist. “The crop health of wheat is better than last year, as of now. But rising temperature over the past 3-4 days has been a matter of concern,” agriculture secretary Ashish Bahuguna said.
Wheat production in India is projected to drop only marginally to 95.76 million tonnes in the crop year through June, compared with 95.85 million tonnes a year before, according to the second advanced estimate of farm production released last week. The Centre is targeting to procure 30 mt of wheat this year.
Since the area under the wheat crop is down by around 2.8%, or over one million hectares, the crop’s yield has to go up significantly this year to make up for the loss of acreage. In such a situation, if the warming of temperature in the last few days in Punjab and Haryana continues in the coming weeks, it would be a hard task to achieve. Wheat is usually sown from mid-September and harvested from March.