When did Bihar become the corn belt of India? When did the mandi at Gulab Bagh near Purnia become India’s largest maize market? A quiet economic revolution has been taking place in Bihar, and this is fuelled by a collaboration between the private sector and the humble cultivator.

“Rather than being despondent after the state lost all its mines and minerals to Jharkhand, it was Nitish Kumar who realised that Bihar needed to develop its potential in agriculture and build up its human resources,” says Shantwana Bharti, a well known advocate for rural women’s issues. What was needed for farmers to change their cropping pattern according to the changing climate. With some guidance and training, those living in the flood-prone areas realised that there was a better scope for growing high-yielding maize during the rabi season – planting in October-December and harvesting in April-June. The yield is harvested before the monsoons. In 2005-06 Bihar’s rabi maize output was 10.64 lakh tonnes (lt). By 2013-14, it had doubled to 21.26 lakh tonnes.

Even as NGOs and ‘organic farm promoters’ decry the use hybrid seeds, the ‘dreaded’ multi-national players have cornered the Bihar market. As one researcher put it, Bihar has an estimated 25-lakh packet rabi hybrid maize seed market, worth Rs 250 crore at an average Rs 1,000 per packet of 4 kg. MNCs such as DuPont Pioneer (36-37 per cent), Monsanto (29-30 per cent), Limagrain (10 per cent) and Syngenta (5 per cent) have about 85 percent of the market. The balance is accounted for by domestic players like Nuziveedu and Kaveri Seeds.

The Railway Ministry officials in New Delhi were curious to note a sudden jump in demand for empty wagons from Bihar. Till 2006-07, hardly 40-50 rail rakes, each carrying 2,600 tonnes of maize, were getting loaded annually from three sidings at Khagaria, Mansi and Naugachia. Today, eight years on some 500-550 rakes are moved from 16-odd railway sidings across central and eastern Bihar. That is about 14,30,000 tonnes of corn!

What was happening was simply this: around 2006-07, MNC traders led by Cargill started sourcing maize from Bihar for supplying to Indonesia, Malaysia and Vietnam. South America lost out. Bihar’s advantage is that the harvest arrives in the markets from early-May and can be shipped out from Visakhapatnam or Kakinada ports by end-May, three weeks before South America. The shipments get to South-East Asian ports quicker, (20 days compared to 45 days from Brazil or Argentina) and can be shipped out in smaller vessels. Suddenly, everyone from Cargill to Louis Dreyfus, Glencore, Noble Grain and Bunge were descending on Bihar.

Bihar’s annual maize exports have exceeded 10 lakh tonnes – 6.5 lt to South-East Asia and 3.5 to Bangladesh and Nepal. Global traders offered rabi maize from Bihar $10-15 cheaper per tonne than the South American grain. Bihar’s maize growers profited, their price realisations went from Rs 400 to Rs 1,200 per quintal between 2005 and 2012. The stretch from Purnia, Katihar and Bhagalpur to Madhepura, Saharsa, Khagaria and Samastipur – north of the Ganga and on either side of the Kosi – emerged as a corn belt where many farmers, big and small, harvested 50 quintals or more per acre. In the flood-prone areas of Khagaria, Saharsa, Samastipur and Katihar, rabi maize has became the major crop.

But has Bihar’s corn revolution ended before its begun? Things have turned sour with the crash in global commodity prices . With rates in South-East Asia sliding to $ 190-200 a tonne, maize exports have turned unviable. The only exports happening from Bihar today are to Bangladesh and Nepal. Farmers’ realisations, as a result, have dropped to Rs 950-1,000 per quintal in the current marketing season.

The Bihar government should take steps to see that Bihar sets up units that can utilize the corn. For example, though Bihar has poultry feed mills in the Muzaffarpur-Hajipur region, but these are of 150-200 tonnes per day (tpd) capacity, nothing like the 1,000-1,200 tpd capacity feed mills in the South India.

What must be addressed is the lack of reliable infrastructure (especially power) and administrative red-tape, which are impediments attracting investments. If agro-based processing industries are set up, Bihar will be on the path to prosperity.

[Written by Frank Krishner for TOI, Patna edition]

  Bhagalpur. Madhepura, Bihar, Dateline Bihar, Frank Krishner, Katihar, Khagaria. Samastipur, Purnia, Saharsa