Monday, November 21 2005 14:36 Hrs (IST) - World Time -

New Delhi: Wheat production in India has been going down steadily and if the trend continued, the country may not be able to feed its 1.4 billion population estimated for 2020, a top agricultural scientist has warned.

"The last five years have been witnessing a downward production swing from 76.37 to 65.1 million tonnes (MT) and such a large deviation had never happened before," said S Nagarajan, an expert in wheat research and former director of Indian Agricultural Research Institute.

The green revolution transformed India from a begging bowl to bread basket with its wheat production rising from a mere 12 MT in 1965 to 76.37 MT in the year 2000. Since then, there is a continued fall, he said in a study published recently.

Nagarajan said India would need 109MT of wheat to feed its projected population of 1.4 billion by 2020.

"This calls for production increase at least by two and a half million tons per year from the base level of 2005," he said.

"But if the current negative trend continued, achieving this target will remain a difficult task," Nagarajan said.

The current stagnation in wheat production is fallout of several factors including reduced use of fertilizers, changes in pricing policies and 'fatigue in plant breeding and varietal development' partly due to 'restricted' flow of elite germplasm from international gene banks.

"These are serious issues that need to be redressed without delay," Nagarajan said.