KARACHI (April 11 2007): After a long gap of almost half a century, Pakistan will be exporting wheat to India from this week. The Indian traders have approached Pakistan's wheat exporters, as India is reportedly facing acute shortage of wheat, of nearly 5 million tons, traders here told Business Recorder on Tuesday.

"We were approached by some Indian traders in March. They said they wanted to purchase Pakistani wheat, which is being offered at an attractive price, as far as quality is concerned," said a trader.

He said that India is currently facing at least 5 million tons wheat shortage and this wide gap has to be filled through imports. He said that after discussion with Indian importers, a deal of 3,000 tons wheat export to India was finalised, after almost 50 years' gap, as last time when Pakistan had exported wheat to India was in mid-1950s.

Later, a virus, namely 'Karnal Bhand' became a major hurdle in wheat import or exports between the two neighbouring countries. However, now, after 1950s, wheat export to India will be resumed as the first shipment of the commodity would sail to India in the second week of April, he said.

Wheat export deal with Indian importer has been finalised by a Karachi based exporter at the average rate of $218 fob per ton. The wheat would be exported via sea, in containers, which would be loaded from Karachi port and Bin Qasim port and would reach two different ports of India Kandla, he added.

Around 125 containers of wheat would be shipped to India during next one week and first shipment of 45 containers would sail in next two or three days, which would reached India within 24 hours.

India imported around 6 million tons wheat last year, and in the current year it is expected to import more than 5 million tons wheat, as shortfall in wheat production has been forecast there. "This would not be first and the last deal with India, and we are expecting more export orders from there," he said.

He said that indentors have received dozens of wheat import inquiries from Indian buyers and are trying to finalise deals with Pakistani traders. Before Indian wheat export order, Pakistan's exporters had finalised wheat export deals at the price of $215-220 per ton, mainly from Indonesia, Malaysia and Vietnam, in addition to a huge consignment of 0.125 million tons from Dubai, he said.

http://www.brecorder.com/index.php?id=5492...m=&supDate=

we have surplus of 3.5 million tones.

India agriculture is really in a pathetic shape, they got to be serious about it. In the long run nobody can have that capacitiy to feed them if the trend goes like this.

This was going to happen with farmers killing themselves a.k.a. suicide.

India has the capability to feed not only itself but the entire Middle East, they have so much fertile land. Unfortunately their agricultural is in such pathetic shape-even worse than Pakistan's in some cases. The bacbone of a nation is its agricultural industry-if a country as big as India can't feed itself, no amount of economic growth or industrialization will be able to ward off famines.

You hit the nail. India has more fertile land than China actually, and their growing season is much longer than China as well.

But their food output yield is about 30% of the world average.

The problem with indian farming sector is the lands that goon passing from father to children are becoming so small that it's hard to just survive on farming. This recent economic boom made prices in realestate jump very high a acre of land that used to go for Rs.100,00 is now going as high as 6,500,000 to 10,000,000 Rs. so you can understand its better to sell lands to tealestate dealers and start buiness with those kind of money. As farmers would be having anything between 1 acre to 100 acres so its bumper time for them.

These lands sold will not be used to agriculture after it has been sold. It goes in the circle of buying and selling until the realestate becomes stable. So shortage of agricultarable land near to big cities like Chennai, Hyderabad (especially), Bangalore, Pune, Vizag (Vishakhapatanam), Kochi, to name few places in southern India. Thus making he essential food items expensive because the distance it has to travel to make it to the city.

Now another devil is coming up it is good for consumers not for farmers. As the big industries like Reliance, Chandrababu Naidu group (ex- Cheif minister), and other companies are oppening supermarket chains they are buying lands in huge proportions and farming themselves this makes farmers life more miserable. But consumer wise this good news for the people for quality food. So gaining in one direction and loosing in another direction.

Now another devil is coming up it is good for consumers not for farmers. As the big industries like Reliance, Chandrababu Naidu group (ex- Cheif minister), and other companies are oppening supermarket chains they are buying lands in huge proportions and farming themselves this makes farmers life more miserable. But consumer wise this good news for the people for quality food. So gaining in one direction and loosing in another direction.

Roger .. India is a huge place there is so much of agricultural land .. i was in Chennai in Feb, I did not see the sort of industralization which you are talking about !

Now another devil is coming up it is good for consumers not for farmers. As the big industries like Reliance, Chandrababu Naidu group (ex- Cheif minister), and other companies are oppening supermarket chains they are buying lands in huge proportions and farming themselves this makes farmers life more miserable. But consumer wise this good news for the people for quality food. So gaining in one direction and loosing in another direction.

Roger .. India is a huge place there is so much of agricultural land .. i was in Chennai in Feb, I did not see the sort of industralization which you are talking about !

Its true that the govt is doing very little help to the poor farmers.I can see the farm land disappearing every day, replaced by multiplexes.A project like Micro finance as applied in Bangladesh by Professor Mohamed Yunus will help.But the Govt initiative seem to be lacking although lot of NGO are willing to take up the initiative.But this budget seem to have more budget allocation for agriculture but not enough to make a change.

I never talked about industralization in my post. I just talked about how the real-estate is contributing to shortage of food supply to general public. You must understand one small thing India is not china where once an order is given work would be starting on the count of 3. There is shitty problem of unions, opposition partys strikes and more bullshit, Who just want to get some publicity.

You must have heard of SEZ's (Special Ecnomic Zones) The lands which are being acquired are being converted into one of these zones by influential companies with hands of state government and is still in process of construction. If you want to see industralization you have come in few years then you can see some in those area's.

For example in Hyderabad even though infrastructure is poor. There are lots of IT parks, Pharmacy factories in some suburbs. These suburbs do well in the outskirts of the city. Majority of the employees do not complain because there are round the clock pickup-drop home services available in each and every company. If you move around the city you can see buses, taxis (exclusively hired) with company's name on it.

suicides have not been among wheat farmers. mostly cotton farmers in maharashtra and rice farmers in andhra pradesh. crop failure is only one of the reasons for the suicides. there are several other socio-economic reasons also.

I never talked about industralization in my post. I just talked about how the real-estate is contributing to shortage of food supply to general public

Yes I too meant not factories but re-estate plus destruction of farming land. India has acres and acres of farming land but since it has upgraded it's movies industry and other industries but not spent neither funds nor any seriously introduced reforms in cultivation system that it is today facing shortage in food items.

I am sure that good results could be achieved by mechanizing growth / production cycle in agriculture sector, but than again Indian govt. priorities are defense related and not much for it's poor population.

75% of the indian population is dependant upon agriculture. but the contribution from the agriculture sector to the GDP is only 22%. bad govt. policies, poor and outdated farming techniques are an important factor. the only state in india which is good in agriculture is Punjab.

That's pretty normal, in industralized countries that ratio is even lower. For China agriculture contribution is less than 10% of the GDP, but the infrastructure investment to the rural area takes 50% of the government budget.

I don't think India lacks the fertile land, they can't be worse than China, it's the productivity. They don't have the necessary irrigation system, power supply system and other support to the agriculture. The problem is this can spin out of control and lead to some disaster that nobody can help.

Best way to help the farmers according to me
1.GOI should ban all the subsidies providing to farmers & legalize & register the no. of genuine farmers.
2.GOI should conduct a survey for no. of farmers & their total area of land and it should encourage group farming like in Punjab.
3.GOI should increase the interest free credit facilities in a flexible terms to farmers for holding land below 10 acres to Rs. 1,00,000/-
4.GOI should take action against middle men by make them to register them & provide receipt for every purchase or produces & vouchers for every payment they make.
5.Like SEZ Govt. should also create Special Zones for agri-products where same type of agri-products grown no other things grown their. Like growing only paddy in South India & not allowing production of Wheat in South India
6.GOI should increase the price i.e, minimum rates for the agri-products atleast 300% or 3 fold that is Maize purchased by Govt. agencies at R. 600/- should be increased to b/w 2400/- to 1800/-.
7.GOI should take initiative for buying and storing those agri-products in any quantity for that GOI should build new & good storage facilities.
8.GOI should sell those agri-produces into markets in subsidized rates i.e., at the present rates.

By the above actions the following things may happen
1.Govt. will get actual no. of farmers and size of their total land holdings.
2.Providing credit free loans make farmers to look at Govt. agencies than the local money lenders and middle mens.
3.Registering & strict evaluating the works of middlemens will force them to be fearful and they might provide right price or facilities.
4.Exclusive SEZ for agri-products will keep the price of agri-products constant i.e, no fluctuation in the price (today arecanut rates around Rs. 12,000/- tomorrow because of mass production it may downed to Rs. 2500/-). Improvement can be made in use of technologies. Because of use of same products in same area knowledge about the products will increase.
5.Increase price of goods will make middlemen on run. They can’t but goods at those price.
6.As a higher price is available farmers will not sell their goods to middlemen an awareness should be created & Govt. should take initiative to collect the produced goods.
7.As the GOI will sell those goods at subsidized rates middlemen will not buy if he buys then he can’t get the higher price which he expects as Govt. will sell it at the lower price. So MM is can’t afford it as he will suffer heavy loss.
8.Farmer’s life will be stabilized. They will earn more live happily & richer than the IT sector or petrochemical company managers.

The above action is little difficult but not impossible if Politicians has the will to do something for the sake of farmers’ of India then he can try it if he can.