NEW DELHI: India could be inching towards becoming a net rice importer by 2020, an Assocham study has warned. Rice Report of 2009, brought out by The Associated Chambers of Commerce and Industry of India (ASSOCHAM), warns that India might become a net importer of Rice by 2020 in case it fails to maintain 1.75% per annum growth in its yield for the next 10 years.
The current growth rate of rice yield in India is estimated at 1.18% and needs to be accelerated at 1.75% consistently for a decade, otherwise India’s rice production would reach at only at the levels of 108 million tonnes by 2020 against its projected requirement of 118 million tonnes.
In such a scenario, India would naturally become a net importer of rice, forewarns the ASSOCHAM Rice Report of 2009, which was released here on Friday by its president Mr Sajjan Jindal. The situation is likely to worsen if the current scenario of faster growth in consumption over production continues. If remedial measures are not taken on timely and targeted manner, it will challenge the self sufficiency of the country in rice. Yield growth is likely to slow down if the new high-yielding varieties are not introduced in a time-bound manner and efforts to improve irrigation facilities are delayed.
Consumption, on the other hand, is expected grow at a rapid pace in the country. Even if there is a slight decline in per capita consumption, population growth will keep pushing it. The consumption growth is likely to outpace production increase, which might hurt the exports and a pronounced slowdown in productivity growth will inevitably lead to insecurity and deficiency on food front.
If we presume less severe conditions for the next decade and expect population growth to decline to 1.6% and assume per capita consumption to remain steady at the current 78.5-kg per year, India will still require about 109 million tonnes of rice in 2020, the study says.
Source : ET