Three days after the Forward Markets Commission banned futures trading in wheat and rice, the poultry industry has asked the government to immediately de-list maize (corn) futures from the national commodity exchanges.

In a statement, the National Egg Co-ordination Committee welcomed the ban on wheat and rice futures, announced by Finance Minister P Chidambaram in the Budget Speech on Wednesday.

But NECC alleged that the government has taken no action to ban forward trading in maize, which is the most crucial ingredient of poultry feed.

"Ever since the futures trading was allowed in maize, the prices in the domestic market increased by 100 per cent," NECC said.

"This is particularly due to manipulations and deliberate hoarding of stocks by speculative traders and multinational corporations," it pointed out.

Saying that the high prices of maize pushed up the input cost by over 50 per cent, the poultry industry leaders appealed to the finance minister and the government to immediately ban maize futures trading.

 "Futures trading did not yield the desired benefits to the maize growing farmers nor did it benefit poultry farmers or consumers in general. The reasons and justifications to ban futures trading in wheat and rice are equally applicable to maize also," the NECC statement added.

In the last few months, the Manmohan Singh government has been under immense political pressure to ban futures trading in agri-commodities.

The government has received numerous representations and appeals from various agriculture sectors, calling for ban on essential commodities.

Powered by