The Hindu : Tamil Nadu News : Ban forward trading in maize and soya: NECC

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Thursday, May 29, 2008
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Tamil Nadu

Tamil Nadu

Ban forward trading in maize and soya: NECC

Staff Reporter

Measures important to ensure their availability

Forward trading may work in the United States
The increase in maize price has
hit poultry industry

NAMAKKAL: The National Egg Coordination Committee (NECC) has reiterated its demand to the Central Government to ban the forward trading in maize and soya immediately and channalise the exports of these commodities through a Government-designated agency.

Affordable prices

A press release from NECC Namakkal zone said that these measures were important to ensure the availability of these ingredients of poultry feed to poultry farmers at affordable prices.

The concept of forward trading may work in developed countries like United States, where the farmers have large land holdings, and have the capacity to hold the grains.

However, this is not the case in India, where a majority of maize/soya bean growers are small and marginal farmers, who do not have the holding capacity to benefit from forward trading.

The commodities are sold by the farmers to the traders at low prices at the time of the harvest and subsequently the price is jacked up by traders, taking advantage of forward trading, the release pointed out.

The maize prices increased from Rs.500- Rs.525 a quintal to Rs.900 and in some places Rs. 1,000. The price of soya gone up from Rs.7,000- Rs. 8, 000 a tonne to Rs. 19,000, the release said.

The steep increase in the prices had affected the poultry industry. The forward trading contributed to the rise in the prices of these commodities.

Egg production

Due to the steep increase in feed ingredient prices, the break-even level for egg production had increased from 90 paise / Re. 1.00 an egg in the last year to Rs.1.80 – Rs. 1.90 now, and in the case of broilers, it increased from Rs. 27- Rs. 28 a kg to Rs. 40- Rs. 41.

Poultry farmers were suffering loss and if the situation continued, 40 to 50 per cent of the units, mainly small farmers, would be forced to close down, the release said.

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