New Delhi
Considering the changes in the food habits across the world, farmers are no longer benefited by growing only wheat, paddy and sugarcane crops. The economic condition of farmers can improve only by diversifying farming and focusing on food processing. Along with ethanol, many bio products are now being produced from maize and sugarcane. Farmers will also benefit from this.
Experts have come to this conclusion at the Indo Agri Future Food Summit. This summit focused on coarse grains, maize, DDGS and ethanol i.e. MMDE. DDGS stands for Distiller Dried Grains with Solubles which is a bio product of the ethanol production process. This product is used as animal feed. At the summit, experts expressed concern that the way the population is increasing and the area under cultivation is decreasing, it will prove to be a big challenge to meet the demand for food grains in future. Therefore, farmers will have to be encouraged to diversify their farming.
The first session of the summit discussed the outlook for maize. Just as cake remains after extracting oil from mustard and soybean, after making ethanol from maize, many types of bio products are made whose demand is increasing rapidly in the market. Experts from all over the world related to commodities, food processing, warehouse and agriculture participated in this summit. These included NFCSF MD Prakash Naiknavare, Renuka Sugar ED Ravi Gupta, MEIR Commodities MD Rahil Shaikh, Green Leaf founder Harsh Soni, DCM Shriram’s Roshan Tomak, Dalmia Bharat’s Kapil Nema, economist Chandrashekhar and Vijay Sardana etc.
Experts said that maize is no longer just a food option. Till a few years ago, no one even asked about this grain, but now people in the economy are worshiping it. After making ethanol from maize, many types of bio products are being made. This crop is proving to be a revolutionary option in improving the financial condition of farmers. Maize is a crop that takes the shortest time to mature compared to other crops. Now the prices of this crop are also good. Such farmers should give preference to maize crop to increase their income.
The central government has achieved the target of mixing 15 percent ethanol in petrol by 2024. Now the target has been set to have 20 percent mix by 2025. This success has been possible only because of maize and sugarcane. Now apart from sugar and ethanol, many bio products are being prepared from sugarcane in sugar mills. With the increase in ethanol production in the country, the country’s dependence on crude imports is reducing. Besides, it is helping in saving the environment by reducing carbon emissions. In this way, the production of ethanol is supporting the Indian economy on many fronts. In the second session of the summit, a panel discussion was held on demand and supply of DDGS. In the third and final session, the outlook for the ethanol market was discussed. During this period, special emphasis was laid on processing and preserving crops.
