Imports are not an option because of high prices overseas after the war in Ukraine
\nNew Delhi
\nIndian rice farmer Ibrahim Shaikh says he looked up at the sky daily and prayed for unseasonal rains to stop. His prayers unanswered, he says he started harvesting the wet crop earlier this week.
\n\u201cThe crop was ready for harvesting 10 days back and twenty to thirty percent of the grains have been lost because of heavy rains. If I don\u2019t harvest now, I won\u2019t get anything,\u201d Shaikh said, as he dried harvested paddy on a plastic sheet in Kadadhe village, 110 km (70 miles) east of Mumbai.
\nThe crop losses for Shaikh and farmers across the country mean that food prices, already at their highest in over two years, could stay elevated, instead of tapering after the harvest as they usually do. India\u2019s millions of rural poor will be particularly affected, hit by both the bad crop and the high prices.
\nAlong with grains, the prices of vegetables, milk, pulses and edible oils, which account for over a quarter of the overall consumer price index, are rising and likely to remain high in coming months.
\nEconomists say annual headline inflation will likely start easing from September\u2019s 7.41% peak because of a jump in the index in corresponding months last year, but price pressures on grains, vegetable and milk will persist.
\nEarlier this week, the Reserve Bank of India said headline inflation will ease from September levels albeit stubbornly and the fight against inflation will be \u201cdogged and prolonged.\u201d
\nBesides keeping inflation high, higher food prices will be more of a burden in the countryside, where wages have not kept pace with inflation. Meanwhile, rising incomes and a boom in consumption in the towns and cities are driving overall growth to a forecast 7% in the current April-March fiscal year, the highest among major world economies.
\nA Reuters Oct 13-19 poll of economists said growth likely slowed in the July-September quarter, although it should come in at 6.9% for the full fiscal year.
\nAccording to a research report by Crisil, September inflation was at 8.1% for rural poor, defined as the bottom 20% of the population in terms of consumption. In urban areas, inflation for the wealthiest 20 percent segment was only 7.2%.
\n\u201cHigher food inflation does tend to act as a regressive tax on the poor,\u201d said Yuvika Singhal, economist at QuantEco Research. \u201cIn a post pandemic world, it can stand to perpetuate the K-shaped economic recovery and widen income inequalities further.\u201d
\nPopat Pawar, who works on a farm in the Pune district of Maharashtra state, says he is getting work, but his employer is not ready to increase wages.
\n\u201cPrices of everything from edible oils, vegetables to milk have gone up. It is not possible to run household expenses with the same amount of income,\u201d said 43-years-old Pawar, whose says his savings were exhausted last year when he was hospitalised with COVID-19.
\nRice farmer Baban Pingle, in Kotharni village in Pune district, says he can\u2019t raise wages as his production costs have gone up with higher diesel and fertiliser prices. Besides, he also needs to spend more on buying essentials.
\n\u201cWe produce only rice. Everything else we have to buy. We are also feeling the pinch of inflation, and we don\u2019t know how much rice we can produce. The entire crop could be damaged because of the rains,\u201d Pingle said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Imports are not an option because of high prices overseas after the war in Ukraine New Delhi Indian rice farmer Ibrahim Shaikh says he looked up at the sky daily and prayed for unseasonal rains to stop. His prayers unanswered, he says he started harvesting the wet crop earlier this week. \u201cThe crop was ready […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":290581,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-290562","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-world"},"yoast_head":"\n