International wheat prices have been on a rising path for a while now. The reasons are many and some are connected to India. On the back of rapid economic growth, population increases and changing preferences, wheat consumption is increasing in India. Of course, it is also increasing in China, and that further exacerbates the problem. But for the time being, let’s only think about India. Increasing wheat consumption in India has not been backed by any significant increase in wheat output in almost a decade. Nor do there seem to be any portents towards increase in Indian wheat production. The international markets have noticed these trends, and are pricing wheat high as a result.

For many years we invested in our manufacturing sector and did not invest in social or agriculture sectors, and had to suffer the food crisis consequences in the late sixties. With some significant help from the world and efforts within, we got the Green Revolution going. Those were heady years; for the first time in many years we did not need to import foodgrain and sometimes even exported some. But we were not really used to dealing with success, and forgot that efforts and innovation need to be continued. We again stopped thinking about investing in agriculture, our extension systems crumbled, irrigation infrastructure worsened, etc. All of this, of course, was much more on show in the reform years.

So agriculture productivities stagnated, despite good rainfall years, through much of the 1990s and 2000s. What is true of agriculture in general is much more true of wheat. Wheat production in India topped at 76 million tonnes in 2000 and since then it has averaged at about 70 million tonnes.

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