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India, battling spiralling prices of staple foods, has sufficient reserves of wheat and rice to meet emergencies, giving the government room to release stockpiles to curb inflation, the nation's biggest buyer of grains said.
The country may have 22 million metric tonnes of rice and 5.5 million tons of wheat stored in warehouses soon, state-owned Food Corporation chairman Alok Sinha told reporters in New Delhi.
The government needs at least 12.2 million tonnes of rice and four million tonnes of wheat for distributing to the poor.
Trade Minister Kamal Nath said the cabinet may consider ways to curb wheat prices that are climbing along with other commodities at a time when more than three years of interest-rate increases and a global economic slowdown are threatening to disrupt India's record expansion. Wheat and rice are the best-performing commodities in the past year on the Rogers International Commodity Index.
"The overall grain situation is comfortable,'' Sinha said.
Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's Congress party-led coalition has curbed exports of wheat, rice and cooking fats, joining China, Malaysia and Indonesia in safeguarding supplies. Singh will seek to cool inflation that's at a 13-month high under pressure from his party colleagues and political opponents, with elections due by May next year.
Vietnam shipments
Rough rice prices have almost doubled on the Chicago Board of Trade in the past year, threatening food security across Asia. The Philippines, the world's biggest rice buyer, is cracking down on hoarders, while leading exporters of the cereal such as China, Vietnam and Egypt are curbing supplies.
Rice costs $20.17 per 100 pounds, from about $10 a year earlier, while wheat has jumped to $9.945 a bushel in Chicago from $4.58 over the past 12 months.
Record global prices prompted India's government to raise the minimum price it pays wheat growers by 18 per cent to Rs1,000 ($25.1) for 100 kilograms. Wheat, harvested in March and April, accounts for 73 per cent of the winter food grain output.
The Food Corporation of India plans to buy 15 million tonnes from growers this year, unchanged from the target announced last month. The state agency has bought 100,000 tonnes from this year's harvest, he said.
India imported 1.8 million tonnes of wheat last year to meet rising demand. The country, also the world's second-biggest wheat grower, may gather 74.8 million tonnes in the March-April harvest, a million tonnes less than last year, the ministry said last month.
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