Maize import move sounds death knell to TS ryots: Officials

The new Agriculture Acts formulated by the Centre allowing the sale of crop anywhere in the country is also proving to be detrimental to the interests of maize farmers in the State

Hyderabad: The Union government’s decision to import five lakh tonnes of maize from abroad by reducing the import duty from 50 per cent to 15 per cent has sounded a death knell to maize farmers across the country in general and the State in particular.

As a result, maize farmers are unlikely to get the Minimum Support Price (MSP) for their produce and instead, suffer severe losses. The new Agriculture Acts formulated by the Centre allowing the sale of crop anywhere in the country is also proving to be detrimental to the interests of maize farmers in the State.

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These views were expressed by the officials who attended a review meeting called by Chief Minister K Chandrashekhar Rao at Pragathi Bhavan on Saturday.

The officials told the Chief Minister that there was surplus production of maize in the country to meet the demand for next year as well. In addition to the annual needs, about 28 crore tonnes of maize stock was available in the international market while India now had about 3.53 crore tonnes of maize stock against the annual consumption of 2.42 crore tonnes.

“We already have 1.11 crore tonnes of maize stocks in surplus. At present, maize is being cultivated in about 2.04 crore acres across the country which is likely to yield another 4.1 crore tonnes. As a result, the country will soon have enough stocks to meet our needs for the next two years,” the officials explained.

On the occasion, Agriculture Minister S Niranjan Reddy said as per instructions from the Chief Minister, the Agriculture Department held discussions with poultry farmers across the country requesting them to purchase the surplus maize. However, the latter expressed their inability to purchase the produce from the Telangana farmers as they were getting the maize at a cheaper price from farmers in Bihar, Chhattisgarh, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, Maharashtra and Uttar Pradesh.

Amid these adverse conditions, the officials felt that farmers in the State are likely to suffer severe losses if they cultivated Maize again in the upcoming Yasangi season. They were also of the view that providing MSP for maize crop could also be difficult and felt that only those farmers who are ready to suffer the losses may cultivate maize during Yasangi.

Ministers S Niranjan Reddy, Gangula Kamalakar, Government Chief Adviser Rajiv Sharma, Chief Secretary Somesh Kumar, Telangana State Civil Supplies Corporation chairman Mareddy Srinivas Reddy, TSCAB chairman Konduri Ravinder Rao and others attended the meeting.

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