Total production may be equivalent to last year; no need to import pulses: Agri Secy

With the monsoon season closing below normal at 95 percent, sowing and crop output has been hit. The advance estimates say sowing and crop output is 2.8 percent lower than last year.

To assess the impact of this Agriculture Secretary Shobhana Pattanayak in an interview to CNBC-TV18 spoke in detail about the outlook going forward.

Pattanayak said he hopes the below normal rainfall does not affect production because although certain parts of India witnessed deficient rainfall, others witnessed floods. Hope is to make up for the loss of production because only Kharif crop is out yet but Rabi is still coming up. Therefore the total production is likely to be equivalent to that of last year, said Pattanayak.

With regards to pulses, he says the country has achieved near self-sufficiency and there want be any need to import pulses.

In the interview he also spoke about rice output, onion prices etc.

Below is the verbatim transcript of the interview.

Latha: We got the first advanced estimates and that said 2.8 percent lower than last year. Is this 134 million tonnes what we can work with or do you think the second estimates could be better or worse?

A: The monsoon this year has been slightly less as you rightly said. It is 5 percent of the long average and we hope, that will not impact the total production this year. It is true that some parts of the country particularly Peninsular India, north-west portion of India and parts of Madhya Pradesh (MP) has seen the water deficit to some extent and certain parts of the country did witness flood.

However, we hope that we will be able to make it up because this is only half the year that is only the kharif and rabi is still there ahead of us and in some parts of the country because of late rains, the residual moisture will be very good and we are hopeful that we will be making it up and the total production will be more or less equivalent to that of last year.

Surabhi: So no hit on agricultural output, should we expect that the second half will make up for the first?

A: I am very hopeful about that but as per our first advanced estimates, we have seen a dip of around 3 million tonnes particularly 2 million tonnes in terms of rice and one million tonnes in terms of core cereals and to some extent pulses.

But to give a better picture of what practically it is, you know the market of pulses is quite subdued. so already stocks are available and so in fact you will see some mid-course correction and the price will get corrected and we are hopeful that the farmers will be getting the right price in the face of a little bit of a less production. So that is what our expectation is.

Overall production will definitely match last year because we are very hopeful of a very good rabi.

Latha: What about pulses, the acreage was down, last year we had surplus and prices fell dramatically, this year how should prices move you think?

A: To let you know about what happened last year, last year production of pulses was close to 23 million tonnes and this year there will be a dip by 0.7 million that translates to 7 lakh tonnes or so. If you analyse the basket of 7 lakh tonnes, it is mostly from tur. The tur area has come down significantly but the urad area has gone up and the moong area has slightly come down. So overall the tur is quite depressed. Today the tur is selling at a very low price. So with the net reduction of 7 lakh tonne, as I was mentioning, we don’t anticipate any problem this year. In fact, we have achieved near self-sufficiency of pulses. So there will be no need to import pulses, which we had witnessed in the past. This will be the thing in the past rather. So this is a very good development in the pulses sector. In fact other countries are today worried because they in fact planned to export pulses to India and it is not happening.

Surabhi: Can you throw some light on the rice output as well, demand-supply domestically and whether you are expecting exports to pick up this year?

A: The total production of rice was close to 97 million tonne last year and we are expecting a dip of 2 million tonne that does not affect the domestic market at all. India has emerged as a biggest rice exporter in the world close to 10 million tonne of rice gets exported nowadays.

Therefore, I don’t think the dip will anyway affect either the rice export or the domestic market.

Latha: I will tell you where the fear came. We had almost thought that food articles inflation is a thing of the past but last month for August, both in the consumer price index (CPI) and in the wholesale price index (WPI) there was a dramatic jump in food articles prices increased. That is the main fear. That came largely from fruit and vegetable so are you confident that the government’s marketing arrangements, supply arrangements, the electronic marketing system, the agricultural produce market committee (APMC) change of rules etc are enough to keep the vegetable prices in particular and food prices in general subdued?

A: The part of the fluctuation is due to the price volatility on the fruits and vegetable sector. The government is very keen that the common man is not affected and therefore we closely monitor the price of potato, onion and tomato and on both the fronts of potato and onion today, it is quite stable. In fact, potato is rolling at a price which I don’t think – it should have been little higher – but the market prices are subdued. Onion prices are initially recorded little on the higher side but now it has again come down and it is affordable. So we do not witness any fluctuation so far as onion is concerned.

So far as tomato is concerned, these fluctuations are normal in certain parts of the year when the rain is there and the supply lines are affected. There is spur in tomato prices but other than that, if you analyse, there has been no shortfall in grains, no shortfall in core cereals and no shortfall in either oil or in the oil segment or the pulses segment.

So I do not witness that the food as such will contribute to a large extent of inflation in fact most of the commodities today are quite subdued in the market. So I don’t see or anticipate any problems but there will be fluctuations on the fruit and vegetable side. But as you rightly mentioned, fruit and vegetables are off the list of APMC in certain states. Maharashtra been the number one. Maharashtra government last year made it clear that the fruit and vegetable will no more be linked to APMC market. So there can be direct marketing of this. So these are seasonal and they are not all India in nature, they are local in nature I would say.

Surabhi: On sugar – we understand that the government did take some steps, stock limits etc were imposed to ensure prices don’t run away during the festive season, what are the price trends that you observed and the one thing that the market wants to know is whether Uttar Pradesh (UP) is willing to move to the fair and remunerative price (FRP) regime, that was the recommendation that the centre put out, if you have heard from the state government and what is UP thinking?

A: I must admit my ignorance on sugar to certain extent because it is dealt with by another ministry, there is a ministry of food and public distribution. what government thinks is we want to make sugar available to the consumer below Rs 40 per kilogram and that is the government’s aim and we always do this either by way of proactively allowing certain stocks – sometimes stock limits are imposed but manier times even permitting sugar to come from outside. Therefore, I am certain that the concerned ministry will be taking steps to control these activities.

Latha: What is the latest on food direct benefit transfer (DBT) and fertiliser DBT?

A: The DBT has been – the government is very much committed to roll out DBT. So far as fertiliser DBT is concerned, the pilot has already completed its first leg and it has been seen as quite encouraging, the government has got a target debt to roll out DBT through all the fertiliser dealers in the entire country. It has got a time span also. though the fertiliser ministry is looking at it closely but the agricultural ministry is quite involved in this particular process and I can say with confidence that this will be rolled out without any problems and the POS machines have already been procured, the fertiliser dealers are very well trained in this regard and we are also linked up our soil health card in many places with that of the disbursement of DBT is concerned.

So far as my ministry is concerned, we are rolling out DBT for almost all our existing schemes and we have got cut-off date which has been clearly spelt out and we are sure by March 30, 2018 close to 11 schemes will be administering DBT completely.