Deepkamal Kaur

Tribune News Service

Jalandhar, June 21

Maize crop is somehow not finding much popularity among farmers. The Agriculture Department is finding it hard to convince the farmers of Doaba — a region more suitable for the crop — to sow maize as the alternative kharif crop. Farmers say low market price, no government procurement and problems in drying the harvested produce were making it less remunerative to sow maize this season.

The area under maize was down to 1.08 lakh hectares even last year and this time, as the sowing for the kharif varieties of maize has begun, the department has set a target to bring 1.5 lakh hectares under the crop. Even now, as the spring maize has started arriving in mandis, the farmers are ruing that their crop is being sold at as low as one-third of the MSP of Rs 1,850 per quintal. Since there is no government procurement, the private players are offering only Rs 600 to Rs 850 per quintal (depending on the moisture content in the crop).

Director, Agriculture, SS Sidhu said, “No doubt that maize is the best alternative to paddy and we are dependent on private buyers for the price. But we can certainly hope for a better price in the days to come as some bio-asanol projects being approved by the Centre are in the pipeline and these could get set up in parts of Doaba and Majha in the near future.”