Price of a few rice varieties in the south, Tamil Nadu in particular, has been surging as poultry farmers have partially replaced the traditional poultry feed maize with rice in recent times, trade sources said.
Already rice production in Tamil Nadu has been declining due to shrinking cultivatable area on the back of urbanisation and inadequate water for irrigation. Now with maize prices almost doubled to around Rs 850-900 per quintal from Rs 450-500 two years ago, the poultry farmers have started using rice as poultry feed, creating further demand for rice in Tamil Nadu.
The poultry farmers mainly stock the IR 50 rice variety at Rs 700-800 per quintal during harvesting seasons to replace maize. The demand for IR 50 rice has forced the general public to procure other varieties like Ponni and IR 20 in the state. The price of ordinary variety of white Ponni increased to Rs 2,100 per quintal from Rs 1,700 two months ago while IR 20 rice variety surged to Rs 1,800 from Rs 1,500.
Vinayaka Murthy, a wholesale trader in Salem rice market, said the rice price use to change only from season to season during the past years. But now, it has been changing every day in wholesale mandis in the state.
In fact Namakal zone in Tamil Nadu is the poultry hub of India as the region accounts for 90% of egg exports from the country. Of the total 20 crore layer birds in the country, poultry farms in the Namakkal zone alone houses around 3.5-4 crore layer birds. The entire maize produced in the state was procured by the poultry industry, Kumar, member of Tamil Nadu Poultry Farmers Association (TNPFA) said.
According to Domestic and Export Market Intelligence Cell (DEMIC) of Tamil Nadu Agricultural University, the demand for maize from the poultry industry in Tamil Nadu alone estimated to be around 8 lakh tonne a year, but only a fifth of the demand was met through local production.
Currently, Tamil Nadu poultry farms procure a major part of its maize requirement from Karnataka, Bihar, and Andhra Pradesh at premium prices and hence a sizeable part of maize is being replaced with rice.
Adding to woes, Tamil Nadu farmers are now preparing to sow paddy crop during kharif season starting June. But the state has been witnessing shortage of chemical fertilizers due to inadequate supply of the raw material naphtha.