Bumper harvest spells storage trouble for UP

Lucknow: Agriculture minister Sharad Pawar's concern over storage of foodgrain, especially wheat and paddy, and allowing their exports is well placed, especially with the country's third largest wheat producing state, Uttar Pradesh standing on the brink of a record bumper wheat production this year.

Estimating a production of 30 million tonne, Uttar Pradesh now has a problem of storage on its hands, especially in the absence of proper warehousing facilities. The state government has set a target of procuring 40 lakh tonne of wheat from farmers under MSP for the central pool in the 2011-12 rabi season and alongwith the three central agencies—the Food Corporation of India (FCI), Nafed and NCCF, six state government agencies are also on the job of procuring wheat from the farmers.

At present, Uttar Pradesh has a total warehousing capacity of 58 lakh tonne, while FCI has a capacity to store 11 lakh tonne. Storing capacity...another 17 lakh tonne will be created in the next three months, but that would still leave almost three lakh tonne to be kept in the open with tarpaulin sheet covers called CAP (cover above plinth).

Talking to FE, an official of the food and civil supplies departnment said that the real problem for the state is the lack of sufficient warehousing capacity to store the wheat that is to be procured from the farmers. “It’s not procurement but storage of wheat procured that is our biggest challenge,” he said adding that a delay in the execution of Private Entrepreneur Godown scheme for creating an extra 26 lakh tonne capacity by the UP State Warehousing Corporation (UPSWC) is also responsible for this piquant situation.

Interestingly, the increase in wheat production is due to an increase in acreage as well as favourable weather conditions. While last year wheat was sown over...