India's Food Grains Rot While 500 Million Poor Stay Hungry

The government is set to ship more than 6 million tonnes of wheat in 2013 from its stocks, whereas the sales by private exporters will be limited to around 2 million tonnes.

If exports touch 8 million tonnes in 2013, India will be one of the world's top 10 exporters. The volume would be equivalent to a quarter of the 30 million tonnes shipped by top U.S. exporter.

The competition also lies between wheat and the booming rice exports due to the inadequate capacity of the railroads and the ports. With abundant rice crop yield, India emerged as world’s largest rice exporter in 2012.

The adviser at New Delhi based trading company Emmsons International, Tejinder Narang said, “Despite our best efforts, we (India) cannot export to an extent where stocks come down to somewhat manageable levels,” as reported by Reuters.

It means that India is unable to fully profit from the opportunity of exporting to international markets, where there is room for more Indian supply.

Further, as adverse weather conditions hit the harvest in Australia and Russia, the benchmark Chicago wheat prices jumped 19.2 percent in 2012. Australia and Russia are the world's second and third largest exporters, respectively. On the Thomson Reuters-

Jefferies CRB index, wheat was the best-performing commodity in 2012.

Also Read: 25 Pct Population Hungry in India Even With Excess Grain Stock