Reading Wheat in October: The Surplus Behind the Export Turn
This briefing reads the wheat market in five parts, and the parts spell the subject: W, H, E, A, T — wheat in store, the harvest underneath it, exports reopened, arrivals that turned into record procurement, and the trading call for the Rabi season now being sown. Four years after India shut wheat exports in a season of scarcity fears, every one of the five reads the other way. The figures below are dated and official; where a number is an estimate, it is labelled one.
W — Wheat in store
The clearest tell came in February, when the Centre withdrew the wheat stock limits it had imposed on traders, wholesalers and processors the previous May. Governments do not ration storage they are not worried about, and they do not stop rationing while they are still worried. The food ministry's numbers at the time explain the confidence: stocks reported by private entities stood at around 81 lakh tonnes, nearly 30 lakh tonnes higher than a year earlier, and wholesale prices had fallen to ₹2,852.30 per quintal from ₹2,970.10 a year before, on Department of Consumer Affairs data. Stock declarations still go to the DFPD portal every Friday. The monitoring stayed; the fear went.
The public side of the store was comfortable before the harvest even arrived. The Food Corporation of India's wheat stock was projected at around 18.2 million tonnes on 1 April 2026, the day the marketing season opened — and that was before a single tonne of the new crop was procured into it.
| Measure | Figure |
|---|---|
| Wheat production, 2025-26 (3rd Advance Estimates) | 120.657 million tonnes (2024-25: 117.945) |
| Procurement at MSP, RMS 2026-27 | Over 35 million tonnes (RMS 2025-26: 30) |
| Wheat MSP | ₹2,585 per quintal (RMS 2026-27); ₹2,610 for RMS 2027-28 |
| Rabi wheat sowing, 2025-26 | 334.17 lakh hectares (previous year: 328.04) |
| Private wheat stocks reported, February 2026 | ~81 lakh tonnes (nearly 30 lakh tonnes higher year on year) |
Sources: PIB Third Advance Estimates, 27 May 2026; Food Ministry via PTI, 3 June 2026; PIB Cabinet MSP releases; Ministry of Consumer Affairs / DFPD, February 2026. Chart: Farmioc.
Ample is not the same as frictionless. Punjab's government told the Centre this month that about 40 lakh tonnes of RMS wheat is sitting in rice mills and mandi yards, with nearly 17 lakh tonnes still unmoved at the end of September and the new paddy harvest arriving into the same storage. The surplus is national. The congestion is local, and it is priced into Punjab logistics, not into India's availability.
H — Harvest underneath
The Third Advance Estimates, released on 27 May, put 2025-26 wheat production at 120.657 million tonnes — 2.712 million tonnes above the previous year's 117.945 million tonnes. It is an advance estimate, not a final count, and it should be read as one. But it is the third estimate in the series, not the first guess, and nothing in the two that follow it in a normal year moves a wheat crop by enough to change this season's story.
The base was wide as well as high. Wheat sowing in the 2025-26 Rabi reached 334.17 lakh hectares, up from 328.04 lakh hectares the year before — a record sowing, which officials attributed in part to assured procurement at the support price. A crop planted on record area and harvested at a record estimate is not a one-weather-event surplus. It has a structural floor under it: the MSP keeps pulling area in, season after season.
E — Exports, open again
Wheat exports were prohibited in May 2022, in the season of the global food-market shock. The door came back in stages this year. In February, DGFT permitted 25 lakh tonnes of wheat exports under authorisation while the policy itself stayed "Prohibited"; a second 25 lakh tonnes followed in April. Then, on 24 August, Notification No. 35/2026-27 revised the export policy for wheat and durum wheat from "Prohibited" to "Free" with immediate effect. Wheat flour was freed the same day, under Notification No. 34/2026-27.
What changes is not this quarter's shipment volume — that will be settled by price parity against Black Sea and Australian wheat, port by port. What changes is the structure of the domestic market. For the first time since 2022, an export bid exists as a standing alternative for Indian wheat. A miller pricing wheat in Madhya Pradesh is no longer bidding only against the mandi and the government centre. There is a third buyer now, and it pays in dollars.
A — Arrivals that became procurement
The arrivals season told the same story from the other side. With mandi rates ruling below the support price through a record harvest, farmers sold to the state instead: procurement in RMS 2026-27 crossed 35 million tonnes by early June, up 17% on the previous season. The government had set the first target at 30.3 million tonnes and had to revise it up to 34.5 million tonnes mid-season as arrivals overwhelmed the plan. The final figure beat the revised target too.
The state pattern is the part a trading desk should keep. Punjab procured 12.1 million tonnes and Madhya Pradesh 10.4 million tonnes, up from 7.8, with Haryana at 8.1. When open-market prices sit below an MSP of ₹2,585 per quintal across a whole arrivals season, the state becomes the marginal buyer and the support price becomes the effective floor for the country. That is what happened — at a scale of 35 million tonnes.
T — Trading into the Rabi
The forward signals point the same way, with one twist. On 30 September the Cabinet set the wheat MSP for RMS 2027-28 at ₹2,610 per quintal — a rise of just ₹25, the smallest of the six Rabi crops, against ₹413 for rapeseed and mustard, ₹390 for lentil and ₹675 for safflower. Read as an area signal, this year's MSP table is a diversification instruction. Wheat's floor barely moves because wheat does not need pulling; the money is being pointed at the pulses and oilseeds India still imports.
So the trading call for the season now being sown is not a scarcity call. Millers and processors should price domestic wheat against export parity again — the export bid is back, and it will cap how far prices can sag in a heavy arrivals week. Exporters should contract on parity, not on the headline of an open door. Lenders carrying wheat exposure should look past availability to carrying cost: a 35-million-tonne public stock, a full private pipeline and a barely moved MSP argue for valuing wheat collateral on movement and storage, not on shortage premiums that are not coming. Farmioc PriceHub tracks prices, trends and forecasts for more than 200 crops across India, wheat among them, and MarketHub is where that reading turns into a trade. Four years of closed exports trained this market to price wheat as a domestic rationing problem. The 2026 numbers describe a surplus market with an open door. Trade it that way.
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