Wheat economy of India: can production keep pace with demand?

Abstract

India is now the second largest producer of wheat in the world even though it is the seventh largest in land area. It produces about 70 million tons of wheat per year or about 12 per cent of the world production. Being the second largest in population, it is also the second largest in wheat consumption after China.

Although there have been several studies on wheat in India particularly on specific regions or states, such as Sidhu DS and Byerlee Derek (1991), Sidhu DS and Byerlee Derek (1992), Sims, Holly (1988) and Gandhi Vasant (1997), and overall studies on food grains as a whole in India, such as Sarma and Gandhi (1990) and Bhalla and Hazell (1999), there do not seem to be any recent overall studies on the wheat economy of the country as a whole.

This paper seeks to examine questions such as: What is the nature of the present wheat and food grain economy of India? How has wheat production expanded? What is the nature of the wheat market? What are the patterns of wheat consumption? Will production be able to keep pace with consumption growth?