India’s 2026 wheat harvest seen higher, but below estimates as rains, hail hit crop

NEW DELHI: India’s wheat harvest is expected to rise in 2026 from a year earlier but fall short of initial estimates after unseasonal rains and hailstorms hit the maturing crop, trade and industry officials said.

India, the world’s biggest wheat producer after China, grows a single annual crop, sown in October-November and harvested in March and April. In recent years, late-February and early-March heat has tended to cut yields.

After years of weak output, production rebounded in 2025 on favourable weather, but a late-February heat spike again this year raised concerns.

“Production will be higher than last year but below our earlier projections,” Navneet Chitlangia, president of the Roller Flour Millers Federation of India, told Reuters.

The government has forecast this year’s wheat output at a record 120.21 million metric tons, while the flour millers’ body pegged production at 115 million tons.

“We now expect the crop to come in at 113.5–114 million tons, lower than our previous estimate of 115 million tons, but still comfortably above our estimate for last year’s crop of 109.5–110 million tons,” Chitlangia said.

In recent years, the flour millers’ body has released its own estimates, which have consistently been more conservative than government forecasts that traders say overestimate production.

Unlike rice, India’s wheat inventories remain relatively modest. Last year’s bumper harvest helped quell speculation about potential imports of wheat.

Rains cool off wheat fields

While recent rains brought respite by cooling wheat fields, hailstorms have pounded crops in parts of the country, raising concerns about some yield losses and the quality of the harvest.

The crop is expected to be larger than last year, though quality may be a concern in some northern pockets, said Ramesh Garg, a New Delhi-based grains trader.

Farmers have planted 33.4 million hectares with wheat this year, up from 32.8 million hectares a year earlier, buoyed by abundant soil moisture from last year’s copious monsoon rains.

“Hail may have caused some damage here and there, but the rains have largely salvaged the crop from searing heat,” said Ramandeep Singh Mann, a farmer from the northern state of Punjab, one of India’s breadbasket regions.

“We’ll have to see how the weather pans out in the next few days.”