India's Uttar Pradesh wheat harvest to possibly decline

Wheat yields in Uttar Pradesh, India, may go down by 35% due to the damage brought by hot and dry weather in crop development, according to Martell Crop Projections, a crop and weather information service.

Uttar Pradesh is the country's major producer which accounts for about one third of the country's grain output.

Maximum temperatures in northern and northwestern India have been more than 100 degrees Fahrenheit (38 degrees Celsius) and close to 105 degrees Fahrenheit (40.56 degrees Celsius) over the past three to six weeks, Martell said yesterday.

''Late-planted wheat that was filling kernels in March will make a poor yield,'' Martell said. ''The monsoon season officially begins in June in northwest India but with 30 days to go, the weather is still incredibly hot and dry.''

India became self-sufficient in cereal production due to adoption of modern science and technology that gave progress to wheat. From a mere 12 million tonnes in 1965, India produced, 76.37 million tonnes of wheat in the year 2000 and swelled the buffer stock, making feasible an export of about 17 million tonnes in a span of three years. Since then, there is a continued fall in wheat production, thus questioning the country's food security system.