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Rajendranagar: An Interaction cum Strategic Planning Meet on increasing maize to ethanol production in India was organized by ICAR-Indian Institute of Maize Research, Ludhiana at Rajendranagar, Hyderabad. Globally maize is an important crop and in our country, its production is increasing @ 4% annual growth rate (AGR) and touched 33.6 million tonnes from a sizable area of ~10.0 m ha. Looking to the escalating prices of the crude oil, Government of India launched a program on Ethanol Blended Petrol (EBP) in the year 2003. Currently, about 10% (E10) of the blending target are met from sugarcane and broken rice.
The success in the ethanol blending programme prompted the government to advance the deadline for pan-India E20 rollout to 2025-26 from 2030. By 20225-26, we need nearly 14 billion litres of bio ethanol and 50% of which has to be met out from the maize for which we need around 17 million tonnes of additional maize grains. This was the third meeting that was held by the ICAR-IIMR, Ludhiana with its collaborators to discuss and plan the roadmap for meeting out additional demand of maize for fulfilling E20 target. Total 50 participants have attended the meeting and gave their ideas for meeting out the 17 million tonnes of additional maize grains for E 20 target.
Rajendranagar
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Some of the important points that emerged out of the interaction meeting are that, there is an urgent need to increase the rainfed maize productivity to at least 5t/ha, maize area expansion in the rabi fallows, need for intensification of maize based cropping systems, development of climate resilient high starch maize, minimising yield gap through agronomical interventions, creating maize catchment area near the distilleries, and refining technologies for distilling maize for reduced cost of production etc.
The meeting was Chaired by Dr SK Pradhan, ADG (FFC) from ICAR Head quarters and Co-Chaired by Dr HS Jat, Director, ICAR-IIMR Ludhiana. It was attended by Dr B M Prasanna (Online) Global Maize Director, CIMMYT, Dr ML Jat Global Director, Resilient Farm and Food Systems ICRISAT, scientists from CIMMYT, Director, BISA Dr Arun Joshi and his team, Scientists from ICAR-Indian Institute of Maize Research, ICAR-Indian Institute of Millets Research, ICAR- Directorate of Poultry Research, PJTSAU and representatives of the private seed, poultry and distilleries industries.
