Allow poultries to import maize, EPS urges Modi

In a letter to Modi, he said the poultry farmers might be permitted to import maize to tide over the present crisis of non-availability of maize. ‘’The import duty levied for such may also be waived as a special case’’, he added.

He stated that to prevent the rise in production cost, selling cost and purchasing cost of eggs and poultry meat, maize needs to be imported. The poultry farmers have requested permission to import maize themselves at zero per cent import duty.

The CM stated that the Union Government had imported one lakh tonnes of maize recently to be distributed for the whole country.

‘’Though this imported stock may last for a few days, it may not address the gap between supply and demand,” he said, adding, if the situation continues, it was bound to affect the production and sale of eggs and poultry meat.

He said that TN requires a monthly requirement of two lakh metric tonnes of maize for poultry feed which will go to 10 lakh metric tonnes for the next five months.

The chief minister said Tamil Nadu was at the fore front of poultry production in the country, with a population of about 11.73 crore and produced four lakh tonnes of meat during 2017-18. Stating that the State has been witnessing a growth percentage of 23.5 per cent in egg production and 30.53 per cent in poultry meat production during the period 2013-14 to 2017-18, Palaniswami, said commercial poultry rearing was practiced in the districts of Namakkal, Salem, Erode, Tiruppur and Coimbatore having 1,000 to 1,300 layer farms of various capacities that house about 3.5 to 4 crore layer birds.

‘’The number of broiler birds reared is 50 crore live birds per annum,” he asserted. He said the government was also encouraging rearing of native chicken in an approach to address the nutritive requirements of the household.

Pointing out that Tamil Nadu was the fourth largest producer of broilers and second largest egg producer in India, he said the poultry feed requirement of the State was 1.38 million tonnes for broiler and 1.97 million tonnes for layer sector, which was the largest in India followed by Andhra Pradesh, Maharashtra, West Bengal, Haryana and Punjab.

The chief minister said the main ingredient in poultry feed was maize, which accounts for 47 per cent of total consumption. Observing that TN and AP are high maize producing States in the country, the chief minister Palaniswami expressed concern on the destruction of maize crops by Fall Army Worm, a pest that affected over 2.20 lakh hectares of maize crop out of the 3.55 lakh hectares sown in the State in 2018-19. The pest also affected crops in AP, Telengana and Karnataka thereby leading to sky rocketing of prices putting the farmers to great hardship. TN CM urged Modi to allow poultry farmers to import maize at zero per cent import duty.