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R. Balaji

To meet demand of animal feed manufacturers

Chennai , Nov. 22

The Tamil Nadu Agriculture Department has embarked on a programme to bring an additional one lakh hectares under maize cultivation during 2006-07 season, according to officials.

This is expected to take the area under maize to 3 lakh hectares in the State. The idea is to encourage farmers to exploit the demand from animal feed manufacturers who require maize as raw material.

Market intervention

The Department is also supporting a market intervention programme to ensure price stability for farmers.

According to official estimates, Tamil Nadu needs about 15 lakh tonnes of maize annually but just about a fifth of the demand is met locally. Feed manufacturers depend on neighbouring States, and transportation adds to the cost.

The market intervention will be through tie-ups with National Agricultural Cooperative Marketing Federation (Nafed) and by encouraging contract farming programmes between feed manufacturers and integrated poultry units along with Nafed, which is the nodal agency for maize, officials said.

Talks with Nafed

Also, last year, women self-help groups were involved in identifying and linking farmers to the Nafed procurement centres. The groups earned a commission of one per cent and genuine farmers were identified for payment of support price. This programme was likely to continue in the current year and discussions were on with Nafed, officials said.

The Directorate of Agriculture Marketing is also extending pledge loan facilities for maize farmers to tide over low price periods during the harvesting season.

Streamlining delivery

Apart from the market intervention mechanism for maize farmers, the Agriculture Department is also streamlining delivery of subsidised inputs through existing programmes during the ongoing sowing season.

The average productivity is low at less than 2 tonnes a hectare and the plan is to enhance this to about 5 tonnes, officials said. Over the last five years maize cultivation has increased from about 81,000 hectares to about 1.9 lakh hectares.

The Department is on an awareness campaign in 13 districts identified as having the most potential.

Objective

The objective is to add about 70,000 hectares under maize. The districts are Perambalur, Dindigul, Coimbatore, Erode, Salem, Tuticorin, Virudhunagar, Tirunelveli, Theni, Cuddalore, Villupuram and Namakkal.

In the remaining districts, the Department hopes to bring under maize at least 2,000 hectares each.

Maize is a short duration crop of about three months and can be cultivated as a dry land crop, irrigated crop and as a second crop after paddy.

More Stories on : Foodgrains | Cultivation | Tamil Nadu

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