Abstract
THE last seven years have seen a rapid development of the Indian wheat trade with the United Kingdom. For the ten years ending 1902, when our average annual import of wheat and flour was 99 million cwt. from all countries, we received an average of 5 million cwt. from India; for the past seven years, however, our total import has been 114 million cwt. on the average, of which 16 million cwt. have come from India. The increase is due to several causes. Cultivation and irrigation have extended in India; the seasons in the northern provinces have, on the whole, been more favourable since 1903 than they were in the eight years following 1894; there has been a great improvement in the means of communication by ship, railway, and road, and, finally, the rupee has been maintained at the uniform rate of sixteenpence since 1898. For the past seven years the area sown with wheat in India has been more than 26 million acres, or about one-ninth of the world's wheat area (estimated at 240 million acres), and the average yield has been 11.6 bushels, one-eleventh only of the world's output, since this yield is lower than in many other countries. It is chiefly in the Punjab that the increase has taken place, and, as larger areas come under irrigation, this province will assume more and more importance as a producer of the world's food.
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Indian Wheat for the British Market 1 . Nature 85, 547 (1911). https://doi.org/10.1038/085547a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/085547a0