Increasing demand for ethanol production likely to create imbalance in maize trade

15-Oct-2024 08:29 PM

Hyderabad. Although India is included in the list of major maize producers in the world and it is also consumed heavily here, now there is a possibility of imbalance in its trade in the domestic sector which will be created due to increasing demand for ethanol production.

Earlier, maize production in India was sufficient to meet the domestic demand and a stock of up to 15-20 lakh tonnes was left for export as well, but this additional stock can now be used in ethanol production.

If the consumption of maize in ethanol production increases rapidly, then other consumers are not increasing and imports from abroad are also happening in limited quantities.

Maize imports were required in India only occasionally and anyway, there is a ban on the import of GM maize here and a heavy import duty is applicable on non-GM maize.

The government has set a target of increasing the ethanol blend in petrol to 20 percent by the year 2025 and ethanol produced only from sugarcane cannot achieve this target, therefore emphasis is being laid on increasing its production from grains and especially maize.

According to the International Energy Agency, India had achieved the target of mixing 10 percent ethanol in petrol by June 2022 and from the year 2023 it is moving towards achieving the target of 20 percent.

The government also wants to keep the production of sugar at a reasonable level, so it has to encourage the production of ethanol from maize. But the current situation of its production is not encouraging, so imports may have to be resorted to.