To realize its plan to promote them, along with major cash crops such as paddy, wheat and sugarcane, the Yogi Adityanath government has decided to procure coarse grains as well from the state’s farmers. The government will procure 100,000 tonnes of maize through institutional channels between November 15, 2018, and January 15, 2019. This kharif season, the area under maize cultivation was pegged at 675,000 hectares in UP, while the government plans to set up 100 procurement centres for the crop. For 2018-19, the minimum support price (MSP) of maize was fixed at Rs 1,700 per quintal, compared to Rs 1,425 per quintal last year, an increase of Rs 275 per quintal. Later, the procured maize would be disbursed to beneficiaries under the public distribution system (PDS). In UP, the area under these four coarse cereals stood at almost 2 million hectares (MH), or 9.75 per cent of the total 20.5 MH of cultivated area in the state. Production wise, the output of maize, jowar, millets and barley during 2016-17 was pegged at 4.7 million tonnes (mt), or a little under nine per cent of the total food grain production of 55.7 mt.