Agriculture and Farmers Welfare Minister Radha Mohan Singh on Thursday said India can double its maize production to 50 million tonnes (MT) by 2025 to meet the rising domestic demand. He added that despite drought for two successive years, the maize production stood at 24.17 MT in 2014-15. He stressed that it signified the resilience of maize cultivation against climatic variability. The minister was speaking at the India Maize Summit, organised by FICCI.
About 64 per cent of the total maize production is used for poultry feed, 16 per cent for human consumption, 19 per cent for industrial starch and beverage and 1 per cent for seed.
Keeping in view the recent interest of urban consumers especially in specialty corn such as sweet corn, baby corn and popcorn, it is expected that the demand for maize may rise to 2 MT by 2025, Singh said.
“By 2025, India will require 50 MT maize for domestic consumption, of which 32 MT for feed, 15 MT for industrial sector, 2 MT as food and 1 MT for seed. Thus doubling India’s maize production would be an opportunity and it can be achieved,” Singh said while addressing the India Maize Summit organised by an industry chamber here.
The Minister said that in order to explore maximum uses of the crop, the maize-based industry needs to be promoted in a big way and special incentives need to be given for the cultivation of baby corn, popcorn, sweet corn, multigrain flour etc.
The quality protein maize (QPM) provides nutrient security to even remote areas of the country and programmes are needed to stress emphasis on the QPM, Singh said adding that special incentives should be provided to the private companies so that they can provide improved seed to remote areas like north eastern region.
Maize is cultivated throughout the year, 85 per cent during kharif (summer) season and 15 per cent during rabi season. He added over 308 improved maize hybrid/mixed varieties had been distributed among farmers to suit various climate conditions after 1957. During the last five years 30 high yielding hybrids and 10 mixed varieties have been released.
He said the government was imparting subsidy on maize seeds through the National Food Security Mission (NFSM) ( Rs 50 per kg on hybrid seeds and Rs 15 per kg on composite seeds). The minister said the government was also providing machineries such as seed/grain dryers, sheller and seeds planters, etc. to promote the maize farming in original states of Green Revolution ( Punjab, Haryana and UP). He said Bihar had emerged as a biggest maize producer in the world.