Overview

Overview

Maize (Indian Corn) constitutes a primary poultry feed ingredient. In India, major maize producing states are Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh and Bihar. Other states including Tamil Nadu, Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, and Orissa are producers of a smaller scale.

Corn is generally grown in two seasons. The first is Khariff, for which sowing starts in June and harvested October onwards. Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh, Gujarat, Maharashtra and Orissa have Khariff crops. The second is Rabi, for which sowing starts from December and harvested by March. Rabi crop is mainly grown in Bihar and coastal Andhra Pradesh. In Tamil Nadu corn production starts from January and peaks by March. Corn may also be produced in small quantities during other times of the year.

Corn has several uses. It is used in the poultry and animal feed industry, in starch and food industry, in breweries and for human consumption. In the poultry feed industry, corn constitutes about 60% of the feed and hence is extremely a significant raw material.

Shanthi Feed’s Corn Procurement Division, which embarked upon an ambitious program of centralized procurement of maize in the year 2006-07, has succeeded in creating an efficient, dependable and viable system in Karnataka, Tamil Nadu and Andhra Pradesh and is planning an expansion into Maharashtra in the coming season.

This system has procured about 700,000 metric tons of Corn in the last year which includes about 200,000 metric tons stored with safe and scientific preservation techniques.

The main objectives of Shanthi Feed’s Corn Procurement Division are:

• To maintain an inventory for a minimum of seven days in all the feed mills across the country
• To create backward integration by directly procuring corn from the farmers at the farm gate
• To avoid middlemen and to provide a better return for the farmers
• To enhance quality standards by establishing uniform and consistent quality product
• It ensures transparent and fair practices and payment within stipulated time frames
• Not to discriminate against anyone, as in provide the same price to all on a given day
• With this in view, this division expects to procure around 1,100,000 metric tons of corn out of which approximately 500,000 metric tons will be stored in the corn growing states.