Telangana, which had asked its farmers not to grow maize in the kharif season, is likely to continue the no-maize policy in the rabi season as well owing to slack demand for the commodity in the country.

As against a normal rabi acreage of four lakh acres, the farmers grew the crop on 6 lakh acres in 2019-20.

The State, which grows maize on 10-12 lakh acres in the kharif, went for only 2 lakh acres.

Under its newly-formed regulated cropping system, the State has decided not to grow maize this kharif as there was a glut in the market.

“The situation continues to be the same. There is a huge pile-up of maize stocks in the country. Besides, restrictions on imports have been eased, paving the way for imports,” a top government official has said.

According to him, the outlook for maize crop is adverse. At a recent review meeting, the officials had submitted to Chief Minister K Chandrashekar Rao that “it is not advisable to go in for that crop in the State now”.

Quoting reports, the official said there was a surplus of 28 crore tonnes of corn in the global market. “India needs about 2.42 crore tonnes as against the stocks of 3.53 crore tonnes. This would mean there is a surplus of 1.1 crore tonnes,” the official said.

“Besides, the country grows the crop on 2.04 crore acres in the country, which might yield 4.10 crore tonnes this harvest season. The markets will be flooded with more maize. So, where is the scope for fresh produce?,” he asked.

As if this is not enough, the Centre has decided to import five lakh tonnes of maize and reduced the duty on the commodity to 15 per cent from 50 per cent. This, the officials argue, would harm the corn farmers.

“The officials pointed out that it may not be possible to get an MSP for corn this summer,” a statement from the Chief Minister’s Office has said. “If some farmers want to grow corn despite knowing the fact that they are not going to get MSP, they can go ahead,” it said, quoting the opinion of some officials.

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