India's rice purchases from farmers fall 2 pct-govt

India's rice purchases from farmers have fallen 2.4 percent since October, when the current marketing year began, the government said in a statement on Wednesday. Purchases between Oct. 1 and March 16 were at 24.3 million tonnes, down from 24.9 million tonnes in the same period a year earlier, it said. State-run agencies buy wheat and rice from domestic farmers to build strategic stocks for emergency needs, supply grains at cheaper rates to the poor and protect farmers from distress sale. India, the world's second-biggest producer of rice, had bought 33.7 million tonnes of the grain from local farmers in 2008/09. The country last month forecast summer-sown harvests of the grain, hit by last year's weakest monsoon in 37 years, at 72.87 million tonnes, 14.2 percent lower than a year earlier. In December, the government had forecast summer-planted rice harvest, which normally accounts for 80 percent of India's total rice output, at 71.65 million tonnes. Farmers plant the summer-sown varieties in the monsoon months of June and July and harvest the crop from October.