Rains flatten Indian wheat

Lashing rains, hail and strong winds have damaged standing wheat in parts of northern India in the last few days, but with a forecast of better weather farmers and officials say a bumper harvest is still on the cards.
Wheat has been flattened in parts of Punjab and Haryana - states that account for about a third of production - while some low-lying areas have been flooded. The north-western state of Rajasthan has also been affected.
Nearly 6,000 hectares (14,830 acres) out of 3.4 million hectares under the grain in Punjab, and 8,000 hectares out of 2.3 million hectares in Haryana have been hit, B. Mishra of the Haryana-based Directorate of Wheat Research said on Tuesday.
But Farm Minister Sharad Pawar told reporters he had discussed the impact of the rains with senior officials and the crop outlook remained bright. "The wheat crop will cross 72,5 million tonnes," he said.
Weather officials offered farmers some cheer, saying the above normal rainfall was likely to ease off from Wednesday. "It is a bit unusual for March but this type of situation can happen during the winter months," said a weather department official in the western city of Pune.
Mishra said the crop damage was not a major concern given the imminent prospect of warmer, drier weather, while farmers were keeping their fingers crossed and longing for the skies to clear. "There is an old saying that after March 15 even a rain of gold is not desirable for wheat," Dharminder Singh Gill, a farmer in Tajpur village in Punjab's Ludhiana district told Reuters late on Sunday.
India, which imported wheat for the first time in six years in 2006 after a poor crop, had ratched up the yield estimates for this season to 74 million tonnes from 72.5 million after scattered rains in February kept temperatures favourably cool.
Mishra said the crop should still touch at least 74 million tonnes this year, from last year's 69.4 million. "Even if the crop is wiped out in a few pockets, it is not going to matter in the balance sheet of the nation," he said. "Thirty percent of the crop is already harvested, mainly from the central regions."
The area under the wheat crop has increased to 28.5 million hectares this year from 26.5 million hectares a year ago. Only moderate rainfall has fallen in eastern parts of Uttar Pradesh state, which contributes more than a third of India's total harvest, Mishra said. "The crop is also better this year in Bihar, Bengal and Assam," he added.
"What we now need is warm sunshine," Gill said at the weekend as he sat next to his flour mill amid rolling wheat fields. "The crop will be a fine one if the bad weather passes in the next two to three days." But others added a word of caution: a leading grains trader said the crop would shrink and other farmers were not so upbeat.