As demand for Indian food grains rules high in foreign markets, Centre urges states to boost sowing of rice, wheat

NEW DELHI: Amid a dip in paddy acreage during the current season so far and increasing demand of Indian foodgrains internationally given the geo-political situation, the Centre on Tuesday changed tack and urged states to boost the sowing of paddy.
Union food minister Piyush Goyal made this request to all state food ministers at a conference where his ministry had also made a presentation urging rice surplus states to diversify crops from paddy and wheat to other crops such as pulses and edible oil. The minister said, “So far, the sowing of paddy is 16% lower than the normal level nationally. I request you to talk to your agriculture ministers to increase the sowing of rice compared to last year.”
However, he said people should not do this at the cost of sowing pulses and edible oil seeds. “If you are converting any area under rice or wheat to pulses, oil seeds or millets that’s welcome. But otherwise, please make sure that the production and productivity is high,” he told states while responding to an observation by a UP government official.
The minister said there is sufficient stock of rice with the government, but there is a lot of demand internationally. “So, the more our farmers produce, they will get a good price in the international market. This will help to increase exports. I am also commerce minister. So, I have to also keep increasing exports,” he said. The minister added if required the government will increase procurement as well.
Goyal also asked states to increase the area under wheat. Earlier in a presentation, the ministry had said that most of the states are now procuring paddy and many deficit states have become surplus. “Thus, the demand from Central Pool stocks is decreasing year by year. Due to less demand from the states, the Central Pool stocks are increasing and it will become difficult to evacuate godowns in surplus states, in coming years. Thus, surplus states are required to diversify crops from paddy to other crops (pulses, edible oil etc) for sustainable agriculture development,” the ministry had said in the presentation.
The government data show that 10 states were rice surplus during 2020-21.