The government’s wheat purchases from the farmers at minimum support price (MSP) is expected to meet target of 31 MT for the season in the next few weeks.
The agencies – Food Corporation of India and state government bodies — have purchased over 22.36 million tonne (MT) of wheat in the key producing states till Saturday, which is 34% more than volume of purchase during the same period in the previous marketing year.
This would mean that the government will have sufficient grain for distribution through a public distribution system and carry out a market intervention programme under open market sale scheme later in the year.
Overall procurement of wheat so far in the current marketing season — 2025-26 April-June — is 84% of the procurement of 26.6 MT in the entire 2024-25 season. This is against arrivals of over 29.7 MT of wheat in mandis in the country so far.
In the last three years, MSP purchases of wheat have been below the targets.
According to latest data, wheat procurement in Punjab has surpassed all other states despite late start and has crossed 8.38 MT as of April 26 this season, against 6.85 MT purchase during the same period last marketing season. Haryana has reported wheat purchase of 6.19 MT against 5.72 MT a year-ago.
Meanwhile, Madhya Pradesh, the second biggest contributor to the central pool wheat stock, has revised upward its target of wheat procurement to 7 MT for the current marketing season. The Madhya Pradesh Civil Supplies Corporation has already purchased 6.14 MT of wheat from the farmers against the earlier target of 6 MT.
“As the market prices are ruling around the MSP of Rs 2425/quintal on account of robust output prospects, farmers are preferring to sell wheat to the government agencies,” Anurag Verma, managing director, Madhya Pradesh Civil Supplies Corporation, told FE. Madhya Pradesh government has announced a bonus payment of Rs 175/quintal over the MSP.
However in Uttar Pradesh, the biggest wheat producing state, the procurement remains sluggish with only 0.64 MT of grain purchased by agencies against a target of 3 MT for the season. This is despite an unofficial ban on providing rakes to private traders for moving out the grain out of the state.
Earlier the government was aiming to buy 31 MT of wheat purchased from farmers under MSP from mainly Punjab (12.4 MT), Haryana (7.5 MT), Madhya Pradesh (6 MT), Uttar Pradesh (3 MT), Rajasthan (2 MT), and Gujarat (0.1 MT) in the 2025-26 season.
The average mandi prices across key producing states currently – Punjab (Rs 2427/quintal, Madhya Pradesh (2,494/quintal), Rajasthan (Rs 2,473/quintal) and Haryana Rs 2,426/quintal on Saturday.
The wheat processing industry had projected wheat output in the current year at 110 MT against 105-106 MT in the previous year.
The agriculture ministry has estimated wheat production at a record 115.3 MT during 2024-25 crop year (July-June), an increase of 2% over the previous year.
Wheat sowing this season has increased to 32 million hectare (Mha) against 31.56 Mha last year and higher than the average sown area of the last five year. Officials said the crop conditions were robust during the entire season.
FCI supplies around 18.4 MT of grain for social welfare schemes including free ration schemes and any additional procurement in the current season would help it carry out open market sales to curb possible spikes in prices and keep a buffer.
After achieving a record procurement 43.3 MT in 2021-22 season, the purchase by the government agencies under the MSP operations fell to record low of 18.8 MT in 2022-23 season because of lower output.
However, subsequently it has risen by around 40% to 26.2 MT and 26.6 MT in 2023-24 and 2024-25 marketing year respectively.