Rains Flatten Wheat, Potato Prices Crash, Farmer Beneficiaries Drop by 51%

March

2026

After a spike in February and March temperatures in Panjab, Bathinda received 408% rainfall on 15 Mar. Heavy rains have impacted the growing wheat crop in Bathinda, Mansa, Barnala, and other districts. The earlier rising temperatures prompted farmers to over irrigate the crops, but when rains arrived, the soil was moist and the crops flattened under their own weight. Meanwhile, similar to previous years, shortage of storage space for food grains in Panjab still remains a concern. Since August 2025, the Food Corporation of India (FCI) has moved 500KMT each of wheat and rice every month to the central pool. However, to ensure there is enough room for the 2026 wheat crop, the monthly movement of wheat must increase to at least 1500KMT. The rice industry is also grappling with inadequate warehousing capacity. Panjab is required to supply 10.2MMT of rice from the 2025 monsoon season's production to the central pool. Out of this, nearly 4MMT has been delivered so far, while around 6.2MMT of rice remains pending in the form of paddy and rice stocked in mills, awaiting delivery to FCI godowns. Concurrently, the union government has raised the commission rates to commission agents and cooperative societies in procurement of wheat and paddy, effective 1 Apr. Alongside, the potato crop had a bumper harvest but that has ironically pushed the prices as little as USD 00.011 (INR 1) per kg. Farmers in several parts of Panjab have started ploughing their crop back into the fields. Assistant Director Horticulture Department, Dr. Paramjit Singh, said that around 123K hectares were under potato cultivation this year. Simultaneously, replying to a question by Shiromani Akali Dal Member of Parliament Harsimrat Kaur Badal, Union Minister of State for Agriculture and Farmers’ Welfare, Bhagirath Choudhary said the number of beneficiaries under the PM-Kisan Samman Nidhi (farmers' incentive) has declined by 51% in Panjab over the past six years. The union government has mandated land seeding to verify land ownership through state records, Aadhaar (biometric authentication) based payments to beneficiaries' bank accounts for which they need to prove their active status. Choudhary said the state government had not pushed the farmers to fulfill these conditions, hence the decline in numbers from 2.3M beneficiaries in 2019 to 1.13M in 2025 (earlier coverage).

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