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G. Gurumurthy

Coimbatore , Aug. 18

SUGUNA Poultry Farm Ltd (SPFL) is putting in place an organised maize procurement mechanism that will help the company to go ing for direct purchase of corn from farmers within Tamil Nadu to meet its poultry feed manufacture needs.

The Rs 800-crore broiler major has proposed to open at least three direct maize procurement centres in the key corn-producing belt for the current season. These centres will come up in Udumalpet, Oddanchatram and possibly Athur.

The company's move to enter direct corn purchases from growers is partly to develop the corn acreage locally to overcome the high transportation cost involved in getting the corn from other States and steady the alternate supply route aimed at bringing down the overall cost of its feed manufacture even while facilitating local farmers get remunerative price for their produce.

At present, Suguna Poultry consumes four lakh tonnes of maize per annum for the poultry feed and 60 per cent of its corn requirement is met through import of maize from Karnataka alone. It also gets maize supplies from Andhra Pradesh too.

Mr Dharmender Bhayana, General Mangager (Procurement), and Mr S.R. Neelgund, Manager (Purchase), said against the average 13 per cent consumption demand growth for maize recorded by the poultry feed industry, Suguna's maize demand rose by 30 per cent. As against the annual corn requirement of 13 lakh tonnes by the Tamil Nadu-based animal feed industry, at present the State accounts for a maize production of six lakh tonnes with an estimated crop area of 4.25 lakh acres.

Suguna estimates its own maize consumption this year would rise by 25 per cent from last year's four lakh tonnes to five lakh tonnes and the requirement of its feed unit in Tamil Nadu alone would go up from one lakh tonnes to 1.25 lakh tonnes.

An integrated poultry company, Suguna Poultry Farm has poultry feed mixing units in Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Maharashtra, Orissa and West Bengal States, besides Tamil Nadu. The company, which markets four million broilers every week, produces roughly 20,000 tonnes of feed per day to cater to the contracted poultry farms.

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