Editorial Summary: Why rice-wheat need to be de-hyphenated

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Context:

With wheat facing production challenges amid rising consumption, and rice seeing a surplus problem, the two cereals have become grains apart.

Need for de-hyphenation

• Most economics commentators and policymakers club wheat and rice, and treat them as part of a “cereal surplus” and “mono-cropping/lack of diversification” problem.
• But today, the situations in the two crops are very different.

Surplus problem in rice:

• India exported 21.21 million tonnes (mt) of the cereal grain (basmati plus non-basmati) in 2021-22, 22.35 mt in 2022-23, and 16.36 mt in 2023-24.
• Despite the record shipments, rice stocks in government godowns, at record 45.48 mt on August 1, which is all-time-high for this date.

Shortage problem in wheats:

• Exports plunged from a peak of 7.24 mt in 2021-22 to 4.69 mt in 2022-23 and 0.19 mt in 2023-24.
• The Union government banned wheat exports in May 2022.
• Its Central pool stocks on August 1, at 26.81 mt, were the lowest for this date in recent times, after 2022 (26.65 mt) and 2008 (24.38 mt).

Usual case

• Usually, rice stocks are below that of wheat at this time of the year.
• This is because wheat is harvested and marketed during April-June, whereas the main kharif rice crop comes in only from October.
• But in the last three years rice stock levels, even on August 1, is higher than that of wheat.

Reason for increasing rice stock and decline wheat stock

Geography:

Rice is grown both during the kharif (southwest monsoon) and rabi (winter-spring) seasons.

Moreover, it is cultivated across a wide geography. Table 1 shows as many as 16 states producing 2 mt and more each — from

• Telangana and Tamil Nadu in the South to
• Uttar Pradesh and Punjab in North,
• Chhattisgarh and Madhya Pradesh Central,
• West Bengal and Assam in East, and
• Maharashtra and Gujarat in the West.

CHART: Stock in Central Pool on August 1; Top wheat producers; Top rice producers

• Wheat, by contrast, has a single rabi cropping season and only eight states producing 2 mt-plus each, all concentrated in northern, central and western India.
• The big four alone (UP, MP, Punjab and Haryana) account for over 76 per cent of India’s output.
• Wheat is, thus, a temporally as well as geographically more constrained crop than rice.

Spread of irrigation and government support:

• In Telangana for instance with the spread of irrigation and farmers assured of a minimum support price for their crop, the state has emerged as India’s top rice producer, nearly quadrupling its output from 4.44 mt to 16.63 mt between 2014-15, and 2023-24.

Climate vulnerability

• Wheat has become vulnerable to winters getting shorter, warmer and less predictable — perhaps due to climate change.
• Mercury spikes in March (when the crop is in grain formation and filling stage), or above-average November-December temperatures (during the sowing and vegetative growth period) affected production in the last three years.

The divergence in consumption

• While India’s wheat production is facing structural challenges — from temporal, geographical and climate-induced factors — consumption is growing.
• Official household expenditure survey data for 2022-23 shows per capita monthly wheat consumption at 3.9 kg in rural and 3.6 kg in urban India, translating to roughly 65 mt for a population of 1,425 million.
• Demand for processed wheat:
  • • Demand for whole-grain flour (atta) or semi-processed semolina (sooji/rava), which are consumed as basic bread (roti, chapati, paratha, poori), morning upma or even rava kesari/sooji halwa sweet dish at home and for all widely consumed fast foods such as bakery products (bread, bun, burger, biscuits, cookies, cakes and pastries), convenience foods (from sandwiches, noodles, pasta, pizza and momos to pav-bhaji, kulcha, samosa, kachori and pakora), etc are increasing.
    • While a similar trend isn’t visible in rice, where processing and convenience food innovations have seemingly not gone beyond idli, dosa, murukkutwisting, puffed murmura, puddings or biryani

Important points Whole wheat grain has three edible parts: an outer skin or bran (about 14 per cent of the kernel weight), an inner germ or embryo that can sprout into a new plant (2.5 per cent) and an endosperm rich in starch and gluten proteins (83 per cent). Atta The atta resulting from grinding whole wheat in traditional stone chakki mills contains all the three parts. Sooji/rava and maida ●They are produced by roller flour mills (RFM) that remove the bran and germ. ●Sooji/rava is the coarse pale-yellow flour obtained from grounding the separated endosperm. ●Further grinding, filtering and bleaching yields the refined white maida flour. ●Maida is the key ingredient in most bakery products (bread, bun, burger, biscuits, cookies, cakes and pastries), convenience foods (from sandwiches, noodles, pasta, pizza and momos to pav-bhaji, kulcha, samosa, kachori and pakora), and even sweetmeats such as gulab jamun and jalebi. ●Maida is known as all-purpose flour. ●It lacks dietary fibre, minerals, B vitamins, valuable proteins, and fat, which are lost in the refining process. ●Stripping away of the bran and germ is what contributes to maida’s longer shelf life, apart from fine texture, softness, and stretchability, ideal for bhaturas, rumali rotis and Malabar parottas as well.

Way ahead:

Short term approach :

Given a scenario of rising consumption and geography/climate-imposed production challenges, there is a need to import wheat to India for the short term.

Long term approach:

• For the long term, the government needs to focus on boosting per-acre yields, and breeding climate-smart varieties.
• It is the opposite with rice, where domestic consumption is not keeping pace with production.

Lift ban on exports:

The government should lift the ban on exports of white non-basmati rice.

Lift exports duty:

The 20 per cent duty on parboiled non-basmati, and the $ 950/tonne floor price on basmati shipments must also be waived off.

Source: https://indianexpress.com/article/explained/explained-economics/why-rice-wheat-need-to-be-de-hyphenated-9545216/

PRACTICE QUESTION Q. Rice and wheat are important crops in India and they are crucial for sustaining India’s agricultural economy. However in recent years, the issues of surpluses and scarcity have raised the concerns in their supply-demand mismatch. Critically examine.(250 words)