Peanut Market News January 20, 2018

Centre approves procurement of 4L tonnes more groundnut

Gandhinagar: Speaking on the steps taken to address issues of groundnut farmers, Bharat Modi, director of agriculture, Gujarat, said the state government had begun procurement of groundnut at minimum support price from Laabh Pancham, at 139 centres.

Modi said the central government had approved the request of Gujarat government to purchase and additional 4 lakh metric tonnes of groundnut through NAFED.

Until now, the government has bought 7.76 lakh metric tonnes of groundnut at MSP, paying out Rs3,475 crore. This has benefited 4,01,187 farmers so far with nodal agencies having already deposited Rs2,584.70 crore into farmers' accounts.

Modi said that while the Centre had fixed an MSP of Rs 4,450 per quintal of groundnut, the state government added Rs50 per quintal from its own coffers bringing the effective MSP to Rs 4,500 per quintal. The market price of the crop is between Rs3,500 and Rs3,600 per quintal, he said.