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Informist, Wednesday, Apr. 23, 2025

MUMBAI – Changes in weather conditions are likely to increase the average yield of rice and wheat in India by 2040, but this will not be sufficient to meet local demand, leading to a rise in the prices of these commodities, according to a study by USDA Economic Research Service.

The higher yields are expected to lead to an increase in rice production. However, despite higher yield of wheat, production of the grain is seen falling as more land is expected to be allocated for production of rice than for wheat, according to the study, titled 'Evaluating the Impacts of Projected Yield Changes on India's Wheat and Rice Markets'.

"Yield changes induced by altered long-term weather trends indicate a potential increase of average yields in India for both rice and wheat in the next two to three decades. The increase in yields is partly due to an expected increase in the higher carbon concentration across rice- and wheat-growing regions of India," said Kayode Ajewole, Ethan Sabala, and Jayson Beckman, authors of the report.

Despite average yield improvements for rice and wheat, the study found that the projected increase in production of rice is not expected to meet the increase in its demand, leading to a rise in domestic prices by 2040.

"Prices are estimated to increase by 232 percent for rice and 201 percent for wheat by 2040," it said.

This trend may impact global trade in cereals. "Greater demand for rice and wheat in India is expected to lead to a decrease in exports and an increase in international wheat and rice prices," it said. "Countries in South Asia and Southeast Asia are expected to have the largest increase in imports of rice and wheat while concurrently having the largest decrease in imports from India. Thus, these regions are expected to turn to other major rice and wheat suppliers to meet their grain demands."

Explaining the methodology, the authors said the study used projected yield changes across agro-ecological Zones (a way of classifying land by moisture and temperature conditions) of India from the Agricultural Model Intercomparison and Improvement Project's (AgMIP) Global Gridded Crop Model Intercomparison to evaluate the impact of more volatile weather trends on India's rice and wheat markets.

To analyse the impact of potential future changes in weather trends on domestic and international rice and wheat markets, yield changes for 2040 that account for altered weather trends were used in a computable general equilibrium model. "In addition, we accounted for projected changes to gross domestic product and population for India and all the countries and regions in this report's models."

A review of relevant literature shows that changes in long-term weather trends have long-term impacts on agricultural productivity through changes in atmospheric temperature, groundwater, carbon concentration, and precipitation. Long-term weather variability is responsible for about a third of the annual shifts in agricultural yields across the globe. However, the effects of volatile weather trends vary across different regions, the report noted.

Over the last few decades, the average annual yield of rice and wheat in India has maintained an upward trend. For example, in the early 1950s, rice yield was, on average, higher than that of wheat. Since the mid-1960s, however, India's average wheat yield has steadily remained higher than that of rice. Irrigation is a major contributor to high wheat yield in India, with over 85% of India's wheat produced under irrigation.

In all, average yields of rice and wheat grew from below 1 tonne per hectare in 1950 to over 2.5 tonnes and 3.5 tonnes per hectare in 2018 for rice and wheat, respectively, the authors said.

Continuous annual yield increases, in combination with increases in India's production area for rice and wheat, have led to significant growth in production of these major grains over the years. India's production of rice and wheat more than doubled from 1961 to 2019. The upward shift in production in the 1970s is attributed to the adoption of high-yielding varieties, in addition to other supportive output and input policies.

While India's rapid economic growth is leading to increasingly diversified demand for food, a continuous increase in per capita demand for major grains is expected because about 18% of India's population is still classified as food-insecure. The study observed that per capita consumption of rice in India has stayed above the world average since 2010, and per capita wheat consumption is also on an upward trend.  End

IST, or Indian Standard Time, is five-and-a-half hours ahead of GMT

Reported by Abhijit Doshi

Edited by Avishek Dutta

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