Tamil Nadu Egg Poultry Farmers Federation has urged the Central Government to allow import of maize without duty so that the hoarding and price manipulating by traders could be avoided.
A delegation led by the federation president P. Muthusamy, vice president V. Subramaniyam and secretary C. Rajendran met C.P. Radhakrishnan, chairman, Coir Board, Ministry of MSME, and urged him to take up the issue with the Centre.
Members said that poultry industry contributes Rs. 58,000 crore to the country annually and is growing at a rate of 8 to 10 per cent. With three million farmers involved in the industry, the country is the fifth largest in egg production and fourth largest in meat production.
ADVERTISEMENT
About 270 million layer birds and three billion broiler birds produce 70 billion eggs and 4.2 million tonnes of meat respectively with the industry providing employment to five million people directly and indirectly. Maize is the major feed ingredient and the requirement is 25,000 tonnes per day.
Price rise
But, the price of maize has increased by 30 per cent from Rs. 14 per kg in January to Rs. 19 per kg in June. Due to low production and in the absence of minimum support price (MSP) for maize, traders rule the market as they create artificial demand for reaping more profit.
ADVERTISEMENT
Members wanted the government to import or allow duty free maize import to meet the requirements so that further rise in price of maize could be prevented.