Maize rules below MSP in Tel­an­gana on higher crop

With maize prices fall­ing by one­third below the min­imum sup­port price (MSP), farm­ers in Tel­an­gana are seek­ing inter­ven­tion from the State gov­ern­ment. They want the gov­ern­ment to open pur­chase centres to pro­cure the pro­duce at the MSP level to bail them out.
Trade ana­lysts said that maize prices had turned soft glob­ally because of large pro­duc­tion pro­jec­tions in the US and Brazil, res­ult­ing in increased domestic avail­ab­il­ity. Farm­ers alleged that prices of the com­mod­ity fell to ₹1,600­1,800 per quintal in most mar­kets, against the MSP of ₹2,400. This, they argued, would push them to losses.
A group of farm­ers held protests at Khammam, one of the biggest maize­grow­ing areas in the State, demand­ing that the gov­ern­ment estab­lish pro­cure­ment centres to pro­cure the com­mod­ity.
“The gov­ern­ment should set up a pro­cure­ment centre in every vil­lage to help farm­ers clear the stocks. It should also lift the pro­cure­ment limit of 26 quintals an acre,” Bonthu Ram­b­abu, Sec­ret­ary of the Tel­an­gana Rythu Sangham in Khammam, told
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In a let­ter to Union Agri­cul­ture and Farm­ers Wel­fare Min­is­ter Shiv­raj Singh Chauhan, Tel­an­gana Agri­cul­ture Min­is­ter Tum­mala Nageswara Rao asked the Centre to include maize in the Price Sup­port Scheme and pur­chase the pro­duce from farm­ers in the State.
He wanted the Centre to provide an assist­ance of ₹4,000 crore to the State to pur­chase at least 50 per cent of the out­put (about 15 lakh tonnes (lt)).
Stat­ing that the aver­age price stood at ₹1,759 per quintal, which is ₹641 below the MSP for the com­mod­ity, he said this could leave farm­ers with huge losses. Remind­ing him that the State pur­chased 3.76 lt last year by spend­ing ₹900 crore, Rao said this year’s out­put was higher than last year’s.
Mean­while, “export chal­lenges to West Asia may lead to higher domestic avail­ab­il­ity, indir­ectly sup­port­ing local maize prices in the near term,” accord­ing to the latest assess­ment by the Mar­ket­ing Intel­li­gence Depart­ment of Prof Jay­ashankar Tel­an­gana Agri­cul­tural Uni­versity (PJTAU).
The rabi maize acre­age in the coun­try went up to about 29.16 lakh hec­tares (lh) this year against last year’s 27.80 lh. Accord­ing to the second advance estim­ates for 2025– 26, maize pro­duc­tion is pro­jec­ted at 461.49 lt, with Mad­hya Pra­desh lead­ing with 99.17 lt, fol­lowed by Karnataka with 63.51 lt, Maha­rashtra (57.25 lt), Bihar (45.77 lt) and Tel­an­gana with 42.24 lt).
Dur­ing the rabi sea­son, Tel­an­gana recor­ded a record acre­age of 4.99 lh, up from 3.38 lh, the PJTAU report said. “Strong demand from the feed, starch and eth­anol sec­tors con­tin­ues to sup­port the mar­ket des­pite rising rabi arrivals and short­term volat­il­ity. Domestic con­sump­tion from poultry, live­stock and eth­anol indus­tries is stead­ily increas­ing, with buy­ers adopt­ing cau­tious and tac­tical pro­cure­ment strategies,” it said in its latest report for April 2026.
It estim­ated that maize could trade in a price range of ₹1,850­2,200/quintal dur­ing this month.
Source : Pressreader