March 1895.] 



GENERAL AGRICULTURAL NOTES. 



317 



X.— GENERAL AGRICULTURAL NOTES. 



The Effect of Wheat Exports on Food Supply in 



India. 



In a Report on the Operations of the Department of Land 

 Records and -Agriculture of the North- Western Provinces and 

 Oudh, Mr. J. O. Miller, the Director of the Department, states, 

 with reference to an inquiry by the Indian Government as 

 to whether the export of wheat was leading to a change 

 in the staple food of the people, that the investigations 

 made on the subject have proceeded sufficiently far to show 

 how difficult it will be to get any positive information, and 

 how contradictory are the opinions held by the people 

 themselves as to the effect of export. The statistics of trade 

 of the three years ending 1892-93, however, show conclu- 

 sively, in his opinion, that the great export of wheat in 

 1891-92 did not constitute a serious drain on the food supplies 

 of the people, and that there is no reason to suppose that they 

 were induced by the prospect of pecuniary profit to diminish 

 their supplies unduly. In 1890-91, the net exports of wheat 

 were unusually low — only 14,000 tons. In 1891-92, they were 

 unusually high — 357,000 tons ; but the exceptionally large differ* 

 ence between these figures, 343,000 tons, is much less than the 

 difference between a good and a bad harvest. In 1890, the out- 

 turn of the wheat harvest was estimated at 1,458,000 tons, and in 

 1891 at 1,745,000 tons. The difference of the estimates, 287,000 

 tons, is not quite so large as the difference between the net exports 

 of wheat in the two years, but the outturn of the 1891 harvest was 

 probably under-estimated, and the poor harvest of 1890 followed 

 a still poorer one in 1889. The largest estimate made in recent 

 years of the outturn of the wheat crop was 2,096,000 tons in 

 1885, the lowest was 1,440,000 tons in 1889; the difference 

 between these estimates, viz., 656,000 tons, far exceeds the ex- 

 ceptionally large difference between the export trade of 1890-91 

 and that of 1892-93. The effect of the greatest expansion of 

 export yet known is therefore small compared with the difference 

 between a good and a bad season. 



If figures were required to show that the export of wheat 

 necessitated the import of other grains to make up fur the drain 

 on food supplies, it would be necessary to have recourse to the 

 statistics of 1890-91, when wheat exports were at their lowest. 

 In that year, the net import of rice and other grains was 177,000 

 tons ; in the next year, when the exports of wheat had so 

 largely increased, the net imports of other grains were only 

 2,000 tons ; and in 1892-93, though the export of wheat con- 

 tinued on a large scale, the Provinces were able, owing to good 

 harvests, to export rice, millets, pulses, and other food grains in 

 far larger quantities than before, and to import less. The 



