Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh governments have announced a bonus of Rs 125 per quintal on wheat to be procured during the forthcoming Rabi season (April-June)2024. The central government has announced a minimum support price (MSP) of Rs 2275 per quintal for wheat for the 2024-25 marketing season. Wheat farmers will be paid Rs 2400 (2275+125)per quintal in these two states.
Madhya Pradesh is the second biggest contributor to the government of India’s wheat procurement after Punjab.
Last year, the government of India’s agencies procured 26.2 million tonnes of wheat. Madhya Pradesh contributed 7.09 million tonnes to the total procurement. This year, Madhya Pradesh set a target to procure 8.2 million tonnes of wheat during the Rabi 2024 season.
The state government's announcement of the bonus on wheat is expected to help the government meet its procurement target.
Although the official procurement of wheat for the rabi marketing season commences on April 1, the state agencies and FCI have commenced purchasing wheat from the farmers under the Minimum Support Price (MSP) operations in Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan. So far, 983 tonnes of wheat have been purchased from the farmers in these two states.
In Punjab and Haryana, the wheat procurement on MSP will start on 1 April 2024 Punjab is aiming to purchase 13 MT of wheat in the new rabi marketing season.
India's government has targeted procuring 30-32 million tonnes of wheat for the 2024-25 marketing season.
The buffer stock maintained by central government agencies like the Food Corporation of India(FCI) has recently reached an eight-year low.
According to the newspaper report, the Food Corporation of India (FCI) held 8.02 Million tonnes of wheat stock as of 20 March 2022. It is the lowest buffer stock since 2016. The buffer stock is close to the buffer stock target of 7.46 Million tonnes for 1 April 2024.
The main reason for the decline in the wheat buffer stock has been
The price of wheat in the international market has fallen recently after a two-year high. But in India, the price of wheat has shown no decline.
The central government uses the buffer stock for