However, a tightening of world supplies and higher international prices have generated an interest in Indian rice recently, which should give a boost to rice exports during the early part of CY 2005.
Indian corn exports have declined sharply following lower domestic production and low international prices. Corn imports are constrained by the 15 percent in-quota import duty, among other market access barriers.
India's MY 2005/06 wheat production is forecast at 74 million tons, 2 million tons higher than the 2004 production, but 2.4 million tons below the 2000 record production of 76.4 million tons.
Most of the increase is expected in the state of Madhya Pradesh.
Despite favourable planting conditions, wheat-planted area is estimated to have shrunk marginally to 26.3 million hectares due to the diversion to the less irrigation intensive and more remunerative rapeseed crop.
The cool January temperatures combined with isolated winter rains provided healthy growing conditions, which should result in a higher yield, estimated at 2,814 kg per hectare, compared with 2,707 kg per hectare last year.
However, a sudden rise in February temperatures as in last year, or untimely rains at harvest time, could affect crop size and quality.
The government has adequate supplies of fertilisers and other farm inputs.
Irrigation availability this year is also a shade better than last year.
Almost 88 percent of the wheat-planted area has assured irrigation facilities, making it less dependent on rains.
The quality of this year's crop will largely depend on the weather conditions from mid-February through harvest in mid-April.
A sudden temperature rise in February, accompanied by warm westerly winds, would cause grain shrivelling; rains at harvest time could result in high moisture level and luster loss.
Indian wheat is largely soft/medium hard, medium protein, bread wheat, suitable for making rotis (unleavened flat bread), and mostly falls under US Grade III or below.
There is a small production of durum wheat (about 1.5 million tons), mostly in central and western India, which is not segregated and marketed separately.
The government's policy of paying a uniform support price for wheat, irrespective of the quality, has led farmers in the surplus states to focus on yields and neglect quality.
After registering a 50 percent increase in wheat production between 1990 and 2000, spurred by remunerative support prices and the availability of subsidized farm inputs, India's wheat production growth has since turned negative.
This should be of concern considering the fact that population growth alone would bring an additional demand of 1.3 to 1.5 million tons of wheat per year, and there has been no compensating increase in the production of other cereal crops like rice and coarse grains.
Although a great potential exists to increase the wheat yield, considering the fact that the existing yield gap between actual and potential is almost 40 percent, realising that potential is hampered by the lack of extension services and inadequate resources with farmers.
The annual yield growth rate has sharply decelerated from 3.3 percent in the 1980s to 1.4 percent in the period 1992 to 2003. Since a further growth in wheat area is unlikely, due to increased competition from competing crops like oilseeds and the focus on crop diversification in some major wheat growing states, any future growth in wheat production will have to come mostly from higher yields.
Although the Indian government realises that biotechnology can be a valuable tool in meeting growing agricultural demands while lessening the strain on the country's natural resources, at present there is very little focus on applying biotechnology to wheat.