India needs to maintain compound average growth at 3.09%: business leader
- Source: Xinhua
- [09:03 August 28 2009]
- Comments
India needs to maintain a compound average growth rate (CAGR) at 3.09 percent for the next 10 years so that the country can achieve a target of 111 million tons of wheat production by 2020, said a business leader on Thursday.
"The current level of wheat production stands at 76 million tons which is sufficient to meet present demand but there is a need to take CAGR to over 3 percent in order to meet growing demand of wheat for next decade," said Sajjan Jindal, president of the Associated Chambers of Commerce and Industry of India (Assocham).
The current growth rate of wheat production is 1.6 percent in India.
"On the price front, since the cost of production is rising with steep increase in cost of inputs such as fertilizers, energy etc., the government would be under pressure to increase the minimum support price in future. In the last two years, the Minimum Support Price (MSP) of wheat has increased by 43 percent," Jindal further said in an interview here.
He also said that with open market prices fetching a premium of10 to 20 percent over government procurement price, rise in wheat prices seems inevitable as global surge in wheat prices too add to strengthening sentiments.
Wheat yields in Punjab and Haryana have been showing a declining trend. Global warming and climate change are also expected to adversely affect wheat production in the country.
"Globally, wheat consumption is expected to go up due to population increase and growing affluence in China and India, the two most densely populated Asian nations, where the consumption pattern is seen changing with a gradual shift from rice to wheat usage, besides poultry and meat products consumption," the Assocham president said.
He also stressed the need for a comprehensive grain policy to address all aspects of agriculture, research and marketing.
"An evolving agricultural and grain policy will lead to a second green revolution," Jindal added.
