Procurement of moong, urad picks up pace in Maharashtra.

Moong (green gram) and urad (black gram) procurement in Maharashtra at minimum support price (MSP) is slowly gathering pace. Some 6,581.847 quintals of moong have been procured from 1,164 farmers by the procurement agencies appointed by the government. Around 4,651.88 quintals of urad have been procured from 744 farmers, figures released by the agriculture department said. As on date, some 43,075 urad farmers have registered online for MSP purchase and 30,120 farmers have registered for moong. Some 59,427 soybean farmers have registered online for MSP operations.

According to senior officials, although the soybean procurement has commenced from November 1, no figures have been obtained from the procurement centres as yet. The MSP for moong is Rs 6,975, for urad Rs 5,575 and soybean Rs 3,390 per quintal. Moong prices are currently trading in the range of Rs 5,800 per quintal to RS 6,000 per quintal, urad at Rs 5,700 per quintal to Rs 5,800 per quintal and soybean between Rs 3,100 per quintal to Rs 3,400 per quintal.

The government of Maharashtra has targeted procurement of 3.5 lakh quintals of moong, 4 lakh quintals of urad and 25 lakh quintals of soybean. Lalitbhai Shah, chairman, Latur agriculture produce market committee (APMC) - one of the key pulse-growing regions in the state, said that procurement has not commenced yet and may...