Wheat: harvest resumes, markets strain

Wheat harvesting has sped up in Haryana’s Yamunanagar district after early-April rain delayed fieldwork, but grain markets in Jhajjar are now struggling to clear the crop already arriving. (tribuneindia.com, tribuneindia.com) In Yamunanagar, Deputy Commissioner Preeti had set April 1 as the start of wheat procurement and said the state would buy at a minimum support price of ₹2,585 per quintal, up from ₹2,425 in 2025. District officials were told on March 26 to arrange water, sanitation, road repairs, electricity, sacks, labour and warehouse space in grain markets. (tribuneindia.com, pib.gov.in) That preparation ran into weather. The Tribune reported that rain in the first week of April disrupted harvesting in Yamunanagar, and combines moved back into fields only after skies cleared. (tribuneindia.com) In Jhajjar district, arrivals across the Jhajjar, Matanhail and Badli mandis had reached 7.19 lakh quintals by April 12, according to Market Committee Secretary Ram Niwas. Of that, 2.80 lakh quintals had been procured at the support price and a little over 74,000 quintals had been lifted from the markets. (tribuneindia.com) The district-level imbalance is sharper inside the mandis. Ram Niwas said Jhajjar mandi had received 4.11 lakh quintals, procured 1.23 lakh quintals and lifted 40,000 quintals, while Matanhail had received 2.11 lakh quintals, procured 1.19 lakh quintals and lifted 20,000 quintals. (tribuneindia.com) The state’s procurement system is built around the minimum support price, or a government-set floor rate at which agencies buy grain from farmers. Haryana’s Food, Civil Supplies and Consumer Affairs Department says it procures food grains under that scheme and stores them until delivery to the Food Corporation of India. (pib.gov.in, haryanafood.gov.in) That makes lifting as important as buying. If grain is purchased on paper but not moved out quickly, mandi space fills up, fresh arrivals pile in the open, and farmers wait longer to complete sales and clear their trolleys. (tribuneindia.com, haryanafood.gov.in) The pressure was visible earlier this week, when light rain wet wheat lying in the open at Jhajjar grain market before it was covered with tarpaulins. Ram Niwas said no loss was reported and the grain would dry and remain fit for use. (tribuneindia.com) Congress legislator Geeta Bhukkal blamed the state government after visiting Jhajjar and Matanhail mandis, where she said farmers faced delays from mandatory tractor number plates with photographs, biometric verification at gates, crop registration and fixed selling slots. She also said mobile network problems were making one-time-password checks harder in some mandis. (tribuneindia.com) The Haryana government has defended the new system as tighter verification. The Food Department’s website says procurement runs through the state’s support-price framework, and recent departmental orders include nodal officers for monitoring wheat stock disclosures; separate reporting has said the state is using three-tier verification, Aadhaar-based biometric checks and geo-fencing in mandis. (haryanafood.gov.in, haryanafood.gov.in, indianexpress.com) The result is a split-screen wheat season in Haryana on April 13, 2026: Yamunanagar is catching up after rain slowed the harvest, and Jhajjar is trying to move grain out fast enough to keep its mandis from choking on the crop coming in. (tribuneindia.com, tribuneindia.com)