India’s big wheat opportunity: How Delhi can make up for export shortfall from Russia, Ukraine

The conflict between the two wheat-surplus nations has raged on for a month now, with no end in sight. Consequently, this supply shock has made the global wheat prices climb — all working in India’s favour.
Averaging 100 million tonnes (MT) in the last five years, India is the world’s second-largest producer of wheat after China (133 MT), but a high consumption base has seldom allowed the country to be a big exporter. According to the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), clubbed together, Russia and Ukraine produce more or less the same amount of wheat India does, 104 MT.

However, these countries are collectively home to seven times fewer people (18-19 crore) than India (134 crore), which allows them to export huge quantities of wheat. Hence, countries with inadequate wheat production, especially west Asia and north Africa, rely on Russia and Ukraine.
According to data available with the data visualisation site Observatory of Economic Complexity, in 2019, Russia’s wheat exports amounted to $8.14 billion, and Ukraine exported about $3.11 billion of wheat. Together, the countries accounted for a quarter of the world’s total wheat exports.
A huge chunk of this went to Egypt, which took about 31.3 per cent ($2.55 billion) of Russia’s and 22 per cent ($685 million) of Ukraine’s exports. These two countries meet about 70 per cent of Egypt’s wheat import demands, which is why the crisis has hit the country hard.
Egypt needs a huge amount of wheat to run its food subsidy programme, which provides subsidised bread to millions of its citizens, costing about $5.5 billion to its exchequer. With this conflict, its food security programme is now under a significant threat.
Countries like Indonesia, Turkey, Bangladesh, the Philippines, Tunisia, Morocco, Bangladesh, Yemen, Nigeria and Thailand also each buy over $100 million worth of wheat from Russia and Ukraine.
Despite being a wheat-rich nation, India used to export only 1 percent of its produce and that too mostly to its neighbours — Bangladesh, Nepal and Sri Lanka — and others like the United Arab Emirates.
The Russia-Ukraine conflict has presented India a chance to grow its exports, especially when 24 MT of wheat is lying in government storage as of February 2022.
However, experts believe that India’s wheat faces a stiff market, and much of its competitiveness is dependent on high global commodity prices.
“This year, we can expect to export about 8-10 million tonnes of wheat. Mundra and Kandla (in Gujarat) will be our main ports,” said Siraj Hussain, former agriculture and food processing industries secretary.
It must be noted that India’s wheat exports were already soaring even before Russia invaded Ukraine, courtesy the Covid-19 pandemic, which restricted the global supply and resulted in higher global prices.
India exported about 2 MT of wheat in 2020-21 and in the April-January period of the ongoing 2021-22 fiscal, the country has already exported 6 MT, according to Ministry of Commerce and Industry.
The government of India offers a minimum support price (MSP) to the farmers at which it promises to pick up their stock. This MSP used to be higher than the market price, but the recent rise in global commodity prices made India a competitive supplier, claimed the International Agricultural Trade Report published by the US Department of Agriculture in July 2021.
As on 22 March, the global price of wheat already touched the 378 euros or about Rs 3,167 per quintal, which is way higher than the MSP fixed for this year at Rs 2,015/quintal.
“In the future it will depend on global prices. This year prices are record high due to war. If it ends and prices cool down, our competitiveness will also go down,” said Hussain.