Agriculture experts and officials have advised Telangana Chief Minister K Chandrashekhar Rao against maize cultivation in the State in view of adverse conditions in the country for the crop and storage of corn.
According to Telangana Chief Minister's Office (CMO), the advisors informed Rao that due to the policy decisions taken by the Centre on maize import, including a reduction in the import duty on maize from 50 to 35 per cent, farmers could not expect to get the minimum support price (MSP). They also said that the New Farm Acts brought in by the Centre, which allowed anybody to sell the agriculture produce anywhere and the reduction of taxes on the import of the commodities has become a curse on the poor farmer.
The Chief Minister held a review meeting on crops cultivation and marketing at Pragathi Bhavan here on Saturday, which was attended by Agriculture Minister S Niranjan Reddy, Marketing Minister Gangula Kamalakar, Government's Chief Advisor Rajiv Sharma, Chief Secretary Somesh Kumar, CM Principal Secretary S Narsing Rao, Secretary Smita Sabharwal, Agriculture Secretary Janardhan Reddy, Civil Supplies Commissioner l Kumar, Agriculture University VC Praveen Rao, Civil Supplies Chairman Mareddy Srinivas Reddy, TESCOB Chairman Konduru Ravinder Rao, Marketing Director Laxmi Bai and others participated.
According to a release by Telangana CMO, the meeting dwelled at length on the Agriculture sector.
It was stated that in the international market, there was surplus of 28 crore metric tonnes of corn. India requires 2.42 crore metric tonnes of corn and the available quantity was 3.53 crore metric tonnes. This means there is an additional 1.11 crore metric tonnes corn available, which is surplus.
To add to this, corn is cultivated in 2.04 crore acres in the country and 4.10 crore metric tonnes will soon hit the markets. With this, the officials told the chief minister that there are enough stocks of corn available not only for this year but also for the next year too.
To make the matters worse for the local farmers, the central government had decided to import 5 Lakh Metric Tonnes.
Agriculture Minister Niranjan Reddy said that in order to get Telangana farmers a reasonable price for the Corn, the state government had discussions with the poultry farmers. Since states like Bihar, Chhattisgarh, Madhya Pradesh, Karnataka, Rajasthan, Maharashtra and UP are quoting a very cheap price for the poultry feed, Poultry farmers in the state are not ready to buy the Corn produced within the State.
Under these dire circumstances, if farmers in Telangana go in for Corn cultivation in summer season they will incur heavy losses, the officials informed the chief minister.
The officials pointed out that it may not be possible to get an MSP for corn this summer. The officials said that those farmers who, inspite of the fact that they may not get any MSP are free to go in for the crop cultivation.
( With inputs from ANI )
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