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After wheat and rice, the government's next big thrust to Indian farming could come from maize (corn). For the first time a few days back, the government had fixed the minimum support price (MSP) for maize for the 2013-14 crop season at Rs 1,310 a quintal, which is on a par with that for the common grade paddy.
The move could be to encourage farmers to opt for maize in place of paddy, particularly in Punjab and Haryana. The crop has been included in the government's ambitious Rs 500-crore crop diversification strategy for north Indian states of Punjab, Haryana and western Uttar Pradesh. On the export front, too, the crop is showing exceedingly good results with exports touching a record of around five million tonnes in 2012-13, up 24 per cent from previous years.
The country's annual maize production varies between 20-22 million tonnes, of which around 63-64 per cent is used as feed meal and 16 per cent as starch for industrial purposes. The rest is sold in the open market. It is grown both during the kharif and rabi seasons.
Sain Dass, president, Indian Maize Development Association, told Business Standard: "Almost a decade earlier, industrial use of maize was just five-six per cent and that for feed meal was less than 50 per cent, but now the demand has grown exponentially, as India's poultry and livestock industry is rising at almost 10 per cent per annum."
He said as 80 per cent of the feedmeal comprises maize, its demand is higher among livestock and poultry traders. Ashok Gulati, eminent agriculture economist and chairman of the Commission for Agriculture Costs and Prices, said maize could help Indian farmers in many ways and could be a good and profitable alternative to paddy.
He said the government should provide some incentive other than the price support mechanism to encourage farmers to grow maize, as it has ready use in the starch and feedmeal industries. "We need a Rs 10,000 per hectare viability gap funding in maize to kick-start a revolution, which can have remarkable results," Gulati said.
"The biggest problem in promoting maize is not adequate end-user industries. Once the government promotes its production, it should also ensure farmers get adequate price, either from the private or government, or else no one will cultivate the crop," another expert said.
Listing the achievements of maize over other cereals crops, Gulati said the in states like Punjab, groundwater tables can be greatly enhanced if maize cultivation is promoted in place of paddy as it requires just 1/5 th of the total water required to grow paddy and gives much higher returns.
"Hybrid seed technology is available off-the-shelf in maize which can immediately double the yields, from the current around 2.5 tonnes per hectare as against the 10 tonne per hectare in the US," Gulati said.
"Presently, only 30 per cent of the total annual maize acreage of around 8.0-8.5 million tonnes is under single crop hybrids, which can easily increased," Dass of IMDA said, adding that among all the cereal crops, maize has the second highest area under hybrid seed varieties after bajra - in which hybrid seed varieties are used in almost 50 per cent of the total area.
Going forwards, Dass feels that the good monsoon showers in 2013, will push up India's annual acreage under maize by atleast a million hectare.
"Last year, maize was sown in around 8.5 million hectares, of which 6.5 million was during the kharif season, while this year kharif maize acreage is already 7.5 million hectare. Hence, I'am hopeful that not only the overall area under maize will rise, but production will also increase to over 23 million tonnes which will a new record," he said.
Acreage of maize has shown considerable increase in drought-affected areas of Maharashtra and Karnataka in 2013, which adds another feather to the crop's growing pedigree.
