KIndia's natural rubber production has risen 3.7% in 2010-11 to 8,61,950 tons, according to Rubber Board. Revealing the data at the 165th Annual meeting of the Board here, Sheela Thomas, Rubber Board Chairman said that domestic production stood at 8,31,400 tons and anticipated production for 2010-11 was 9,02,000 tonnes. The anticipated consumption in 2010-11 was 9,77,000 tons. Domestic consumption has increased by 2 per cent in 2010-11. During 2010-11, growth in tyre production in the automotive sector grew by 23 per cent. Export of tyres also increased by 20 per cent. However, truck and bus tyre exports declined by five per cent. During 2010-11 fiscal, exports stood at 28,424 tonnes compared with 25,090 tonnes in the previous fiscal. Imports accounted for 1,77,482 tonnes, 73 per cent of which was through duty free channels. Rubber Board does not foresee any shortage for the commodity as the opening stock of rubber in
2011-12 was relatively high at 2,77,095 tonnes against 2,11,290 tonnes in 2010-11. Meanwhile, the Automotive Tyre Manufacturers Association (ATMA) has urged the rubber board to take steps to avoid delays in mandatory inspection of imported rubber which is affecting the raw material availability for manufacturers. The onus of ensuring quality of imported rubber should lie with the manufacturers and not the government, ATMA said.

The ministry of food and consumer affairs is not in favour of recommending a ban on forward trading of essential commodities. The ministry is currently working on the final recommendations based on suggestions made by a working group on consumer affairs headed by Narendra Modi and co-chaired by chief ministers of Maharashtra, Andhra Pradesh and Tamil Nadu. These recommendations then will be sent to the Prime minister thereafter. The working group had strongly recommended banning forward trading in essential commodities. The ministry, albeit is in favour of many recommendations made by the working group, especially those on reforming the Agricultural Produce Marketing Committees across states for bridging the gap between the wholesale and retail food prices and amending the Essential Commodities Act to check hoarding. B C Khatua, chairman of FMC said: “Our presentation to the working group was based on well founded facts and not mere sentiment. Today a farmer has multiple options for selling his products- either in a mandi or a spot exchange . While we are continuing with our awareness programme, what is not realised is that farmers need a sound price discovery system and thus, his interest is in futures market to plan and execute pricing of his sale rather than just selling the products in the spot market.” However, we did not intervene since higher margins would have affected the genuine domestic consumers who were anyway fighting higher prices for procurement. Higher trade margins would have hurt genuine hedgers and traders.

The US Department of Agriculture (USDA) has revised its estimate of India’s sugar production in the ongoing 2010-11 sugar year slightly upward to 24 million tonnes (mt), but this is still lower than the government’s forecast of 24.5 mt. Earlier, USDA had pegged the country’s sugar production at 23.6 million tonnes during the ongoing 2010-11 sugar year. USDA said in its latest report that it has revised India’s sugar production forecast to 24 mt from its previous estimate after taking into account higher cane output of 340.5 mt in the 2010-11 sugar year. Production in top two sugar producing states — Maharashtra and Uttar Pradesh — is expected to be 9.3 mt tonnes and 6.2 mt, respectively, this year, it said. Higher production is expected particularly in central and southern India, as output in these regions is likely to be better following well distributed rain, it said.

The food ministry and agriculture ministry are at loggerheads on lifting of ban on wheat exports with the former saying overseas shipments of the grain could lead to rise in domestic prices. “We are against wheat exports. We feel that if we open exports, domestic prices will be affected,” Food Minister K V Thomas told reporters, here. His remarks come close on the heels of Agriculture Minister Sharad Pawar's statement that the government should give a serious thought to allowing export of wheat as there is excess supply in the country. Thomas said: “Pawar is pushing for wheat export because he as an Agriculture Minister has certain priorities towards farmers. But I am a Food Minister, I have different set of priorities and I need to be careful”. The proposal of wheat exports may come for discussion in the Empowered Group of Ministers (EGom) on Food on May 2. "But the Food Ministry will oppose it," he said. Recently, Pawar had said that the country is estimated to harvest a record 84.27 million tonnes of wheat in 2010-11 crop year (July-June). There is wheat stock of 14 million tonnes, as against buffer norm of 7 million tonnes so far.