In 2020, when Covid struck, India had enough shares of wheat and rice in authorities godowns. Farmers additionally harvested a bumper rabi (winter-spring) crop in March-Could and adopted it with good manufacturing in the course of the subsequent two seasons over 2020 and 2021.
Agriculture was a supply of respite then. The scenario appears considerably comparable this time too.
On March 1, the day after the US and Israel launched strikes towards Iran, the Meals Company of India and state authorities companies had 23.6 million tonnes (mt) of wheat of their warehouses, in comparison with 13.4 mt and 9.7 mt on the identical day for the previous two years. Milled rice shares have been even increased at 36.5 mt (see chart).
Rabi consolation
It isn’t opening shares alone.
The manufacturing prospects from the rabi crops, now in varied phases of harvesting, additionally look good. The driving force for it has been the excess monsoon rainfall in 2025, main farmers to plant extra space underneath wheat, mustard, maize, chana (chickpea), masoor (pink lentil) and even potato and onion. The upper acreages have been mixed with fairly beneficial climate circumstances.
“The rains triggered by successive western disturbances this month has introduced down temperatures. It has been helpful for wheat, because the crop will get extra time for grain-filling. It interprets into increased grain dimension and weight, and in the end yields,” mentioned Rajbir Yadav, principal scientist on the Indian Agricultural Analysis Institute in New Delhi. Wheat harvesting is already underway in central India, whereas it will decide up within the north and northwestern states in the direction of mid-April.
Mustard harvesting is mostly from late-February to mid-March. “We had unseasonal rains and hailstorms after mid-March, however the siliqua (pod) growth and grain (seed) formation was accomplished by then,” famous Bhagirath Choudhary, director of the South Asia Biotechnology Centre at Jodhpur (Rajasthan).
He anticipated manufacturing setbacks primarily in seed spices resembling jeera (cumin) and isabgol (psyllium husk): “These crops want an extended and colder rising season than wheat and mustard. We didn’t actually have that this time”.
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Doongar Singh, a potato grower-cum-cold retailer proprietor in Khandauli close to Agra (Uttar Pradesh), estimated yields of the tuber crop at round final yr’s ranges: “Manufacturing is 8-10% increased due to elevated acreage”.
Harvesting of rabi maize in Bihar, a significant rising state, will start after mid-April. “Farmers have planted extra space and the climate too has been good to this point. Final yr, grain yields have been 4-4.5 tonnes per acre. They may common the identical, if no more, this time,” based on Anil Kishorepuria, chairman of Regaal Sources Ltd, a number one corn wet-milling firm with operations in Bihar’s Kishanganj district.
The large image is that India has entered this disaster from the Iran Warfare – simply as with the pandemic six years in the past – with plentiful meals shares and a bumper rabi harvest within the offing. Even in sugar, the place closing shares for 2025-26 (October-September) are projected decrease (see desk), each all-India common ex-factory and modal (most-quoted) retail costs are just about unchanged at Rs 38.5 and Rs 45 per kg respectively relative to a yr in the past.
Merely put, there are not any meals provide or inflation pressures – for now.
Looming menace from provide shock in fertilisers…
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In fertilisers, too, the shares of urea and di-ammonium phosphate (DAP), at 6.1 mt and a couple of.4 mt respectively on March 19 as per authorities information, have been increased than their corresponding year-ago ranges of 5.5 mt and 1.2 mt.
So have been the shares of advanced fertilisers containing nitrogen, phosphorous, potassium and sulphur in several ratios (5.7 mt versus 3.4 mt) and single tremendous phosphate or SSP (2.5 mt versus 2.3 mt), whereas marginally decrease for muriate of potash (1.3 mt versus 1.4 mt).
The issue, although, is of their availability for the upcoming kharif (monsoon) planting season from June. The conflict has disrupted imports from the Gulf Cooperation Council international locations which are the biggest suppliers of urea and DAP in addition to inputs – particularly liquid pure fuel, ammonia and sulphur – for manufacture of fertilisers in India.
For the reason that conflict broke out, landed costs of ammonia imported into India have shot up from $450-470 to $725-750 per tonne. Sulphur costs have, during the last one yr, soared from under $200 to $700-plus per tonne, and from $640-650 to about $825 for imported DAP.
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India yearly consumes roughly 40 mt of urea, 10 mt of DAP, 14 mt advanced fertilisers and 5 mt of SSP. “The present shares can barely meet the requirement for the primary half of the kharif season. The federal government should be sure that we proceed to provide and import. It could necessitate recalibration of nutrient-based subsidy charges to totally replicate each rising worldwide costs and a weakening rupee,” a senior trade government informed The Indian Specific.
The main target ought to be to maximise home manufacturing of advanced fertilisers and SSP, and push farmers to use extra of those as a substitute of urea and DAP. “With one tonne of phosphoric acid, you may produce solely two tonnes of DAP, as towards 4-5 tonnes of complexes resembling 20:20:0:13 having extra balanced nutrient composition. This disaster ought to be changed into a chance to advertise nutrient use effectivity and balanced fertilisation,” he added.
…and pesticides
Crops want fertilisers to ship vitamins for progress. Additionally they require chemical substances – pesticides, fungicides and herbicides – to guard towards pests, illnesses and weeds that trigger yield losses.
Crop safety chemical substances are not any much less uncovered to the uncooked materials provide chain disruptions from the conflict. Some 55% of the worldwide provide of naphtha – a main feedstock for agrochemicals – originates from crude petroleum oil refineries in West Asia or passes by way of the Strait of Hormuz.
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Naphtha is each “cracked” into ethylene, propylene and butadiene and “reformed” into benzene, toluene and xylene. These, in flip, are the constructing blocks for intermediate chemical substances used within the manufacture of lively components and in addition their emulsifiers and solvents for varied crop safety formulations. As an illustration, the herbicide glyphosate is formulated utilizing isopropylamine that’s derived from isopropanol and which additional comes from propylene.
“When naphtha and propylene provides from Center East are hit, Chinese language producers increase their costs of isopropylamine. It, then, will increase our manufacturing value of glyphosate formulation,” defined Sohit Satyawali, chief enterprise officer on the New Delhi-based Crystal Crop Safety Ltd.
Base chemical substances aside – these additionally embody sulphur and methanol – there was an escalation in the price of packaging supplies, be it HDPE and PET bottles, versatile pouches, grasp carton bins and even labels. “Packaging materials prices itself are up 30-40%. It’s all linked to petrochemicals and the conflict,” he identified.
How these prices will play out in farmers’ fields, and ultimately meals costs, stay to be seen.
