The Agro Market Intelligence and Business Promotion Centre (AMI&BPC) of the Department of Agricultural Marketing and Agri Business has indicated that the price of groundnut would remain stable during the ‘thaipattam’ harvest season.
In a price advisory, the centre said farmers could get a price of Rs. 40 to Rs. 42 a kg of groundnut pod at Sevur Regulated Market in Tirupur district and Rs. 45 to Rs. 47 a kg at Tindivanam Regulated Market during April - May 2015. The relatively higher price for pod in Tindivanam market is mainly due to the higher number of traders and low arrivals compared to the Sevur regulated market.
The price advisory was based on market surveys and econometric analysis of the prices of groundnut pod that prevailed in Sevur and Tindivanam Regulated Markets over the past couple of decades conducted by the AMI & BPC functioning at the Centre for Agricultural and Rural Development Studies (CARDS), Tamil Nadu Agricultural University.
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The price advisory said during 2013-14, India stood second in terms of production (9.47 million tonnes) and first in area under the crop with 5.25 million hectares. The Crop Forecast Coordination Centre (CFCC), Union Ministry of Agriculture and Co-operation, has estimated groundnut production for the kharif 2014-15 would be 50.24 lakh tones in the major crop-growing states of Gujarat, Andhra Pradesh, Rajasthan, Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, Madhya Pradesh and Maharashtra, which account for close to 90 per cent of the production. This was lower by 55.69 lakh tonnes to the 2013-14 kharif season. Groundnut exports during 2013-14 stood at 5.10 lakh tonnes. In 2014-15 it was expected to be around six lakh tonnes.
In Tamil Nadu, groundnut was cultivated on 3.39 lakh hectares of land and the State produced 7.85 lakh tonnes with an average yield of 2,751 kg a hectare during 2012-13. The major groundnut-producing districts are Tiruvannamalai, Villupuram, Vellore, Kanchipuram, Thiruvallur, Cuddalore, Namakkal, Krishnagiri, Salem, and Dharmapuri. In most of these districts, groundnut is sown during July to August (Adipattam) and January to February (Thaipattam). In Thaipattam, it is grown under irrigated conditions. Thaipattam is one of the major sowing seasons for groundnut in Tamil Nadu.