Rich harvest awaits maize farmers

The AP State Cooperative Marketing Federation Limited (AP Markfed) has come out with a unique initiative to ensure a minimum support price (MSP) for maize farmers this kharif season.

The federation has established 286 more centres across 134 mandals in seven major maize-growing districts of Karimnagar, Nizamabad, Adilabad, Medak, Mahabubnagar, Warangal and Ranga Reddy to procure about 4 lakh metric tonnes of maize valued at Rs 216 crore.

Markfed, in collaboration with the Society for Elimination of Rural Poverty (SERP), has unveiled the plan under the Indira Kranthi Patham (IKP), to ensure Rs 100 crore additional income for the farmers in the state as compared to last year.

The maize crop area this kharif is 30 per cent more at 6.45 lakh hectares than that of last season due to good monsoon. The maize yield too is expected to be 16 lakh metric tonnes this kharif season as compared to last season's 12 lakh metric tonnes. The MSP has also been pegged at Rs 540 per quintal as against Rs 525 per quintal last year.

"We have come out with this novel initiative of further decentralising the purchasing system to keep the real market price at Rs 540 per quintal so that the benefits of MSP reach small farmers. Previously, the farmers were vulnerable to losses ranging between Rs 50 and Rs 60 per quintal," A Venkatesulu, general manager (production and marketing), AP Markfed, said.

This is the first such initiative by any state government in the country to intervene through village-level organisations to provide an MSP for farmers, he claimed.

Explaining how the new initiative works, Venkatesulu said Karimnagar district, which had 15 centres previously will now have about 100 centres where the farmers can sell their produce.

There will be at least 2-3 centres for each mandal with each centre catering to about 3-6 villages. The centre will be paid a commission of Rs 5 per quintal by Markfed. The procurement centres have been identified keeping in view the basic infrastructure available and the crop area, he said.

Of the 286 centres, 36 are located at the agricultural market committees, 237 at the Grama Aikya Sanghas, village-level organisations run by self-help groups (SHGs), and 13 Primary Agricultural Cooperative Societies and District Cooperative Marketing Societies.

The establishment of the centres has been restricted to the seven districts as 85 per cent of maize in the state is produced from there, Venkatesulu said. "This is being done on a pilot basis and we shall extend this to other districts as well as to other crops in future," he said.

AP Markfed, in consultation with the Food Corporation of India, Central Warehousing Corporation, State Warehousing Corporation, agricultural market committees apart from other private providers, has made arrangements to store maize in godowns with a storage capacity of up to 3.81 lakh metric tonnes.