February 9, 2002	Saturday	Ziqa’ad 25, 1422

ISLAMABAD, Feb 8: The officials of the Ministry of Food and Agriculture has requested President Gen Pervez Musharraf to direct the Trading Corporation of Pakistan (TCP) to immediately buy lint from the farmers.

Minister for Food and Agriculture Khair Muhammad Junejo and president’s advisor on agriculture Shafi Niaz have separately written letters to the president requesting him to save the farmers from being starved by asking the TCP to buy lint from them. They have also written similar letters to Minister for Commerce Abdul Razak Dawood. The officials of Punjab government were also seeking the involvement of the president over the issue.

Official sources said that with the decline in international prices, the TCP stopped buying lint which was causing unrest among and creating financial difficulties for the farmers. One of the reasons for not lifting lint from the farmers was its low demand in the local market.

The Crop Reporting Committee had also expressed its serious concern over the issue and called upon the officials of the Chief Executive Secretariat to ask the TCP to buy lint both from small and big farmers.

Earlier, international prices of lint had gone up due to which local prices of the commodity had also increased. But then the prices started coming down, with TCP refusing to buy lint from the farmers, although it had promised to buy one million bales. The TCP has so far purchased 200,000 bales.

The TCP, the sources said, was arguing that about half a million bales of lint had already been imported while 800,000 tons were lying in godowns which was imported last year. “Now the officials of the TCP are saying that they have built a big stock and under such circumstances, how could they buy more from the farmers,” said an official, conceding that the problem of farmers was also genuine.

The issue was likely to be raised in the next meeting of the Economic Coordination Committee of the Cabinet (ECC).

Meanwhile, it was also learnt that the officials of the ministry of food and agriculture have expressed their serious concern over the reported 60 to 70 per cent less water this year. They said that they were now banking on the melting of snow on hills so that water shortage could be removed.

The government was hoping to have 20 million tons of wheat this year. “But if we are able to produce about 18 million tons of wheat it will be a great achievement under the circumstances,” said a senior official of the ministry of food and agriculture.

He said that if 18 million tons of wheat was achieved this year, it would be sufficient to meet the requirements of Pakistan as well as of Afghanistan.