Telangana urges Centre to relax procurement norms of cotton, maize, soybean
Farmers in Telangana are struggling to sell soybean, maize and cotton at MSP due to crop damage and low market prices. Agriculture Minister Tummala Nageswara Rao has urged the Centre to relax FAQ norms and direct NAFED, NCCF and CCI to procure crops at support prices to prevent trader exploitation.
With farmers still facing problems in the disposal (sale) of their produce, particularly soybean, maize and cotton, at minimum support price (MSP), Minister for Agriculture Tummala Nageswara Rao has written to the Centre again to relax norms to prevent exploitation by traders and ensure support price.
In separate letters addressed to Union Minister for Agriculture Shivraj Singh Chouhan and Minister for Textiles Giriraj Singh, Mr. Rao explained that farmers had suffered crop damage and loss due to untimely rains first and then due to Montha cyclone impact. He explained the necessity to relax the fair average quality norms in the wake of such adverse conditions and ensure farmers get support price to their produce.
Mr. Rao stated that soybean was cultivated in 3,66,697 acres during the Kharif season and the estimated yield was 7.62 quintals per acre. However, untimely rains during the harvesting period had damaged the crop badly, including discolouration and shrivelling of grain.
Accordingly, there was every necessity to relax the FAQs of soybean by the National Agricultural Cooperative Marketing Federation (NAFED) and Federation National Cooperative Consumers Federation (NCCF), Mr. Nageswara Rao said and requested the Centre to direct NAFED to procure soybean with relaxed FAQ norms. The Centre had fixed MSP of ₹5,328 per quintal.
On maize, the Agriculture Minister said the crop was raised in 6.74 lakh acres and the yield was estimated at 25 quintals per acre and the production was estimated at 16.85 lakh tonnes. Against the MSP of ₹2,400 per quintal, the prices in the open markets and offered by traders was not crossing even ₹1,960 per quintals.
As the farming community was highly concerned about the disposal of maize, the State Government had taken to procurement on its own and so far 48,757 tonnes was procured at MSP from 14,519 farmers. Only the market intervention/procurement by NAFED and NCCF would provide the much needed relief to the farming community, he noted.
On the procurement of cotton by the Cotton Corporation of India (CCI), the minister requested the Union Textiles Minister to direct the CCI to relax the revised norm of procuring only 7 quintals of cotton per acre and restore the norm of 11.74 quintals per acre based on the average yield per acre in Telangana.
He also requested the Centre to address the problems in spot booking and booking for procurement at centres operated by L1 and L2 category ginning mills.
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Source : The Hindu
