KARACHI, May 2: A bumper wheat crop is causing financial hardships to the farmers who are finding it difficult to get officially fixed procurement price of Rs300 for 40 kg, and are reported to be compelled to offer their stock on Rs220 to Rs250.

Enquiries made with the farmers reveal that there are more than one problem to sell surplus wheat at the official procurement centres. “It starts from the procurement of empty gunny bags (Bardana) to the final weight.... there are a lot of inhibiting factors that force us to sell to the middlemen at much lower rates,” a farmer said.

According to official procurement policy, the growers have to secure official gunny bags from the designated centres after depositing money at the rate of Rs50 per 10 bags and then send their stocks to the gowdowns followed by a long official exercise to get the payment.

The president, Sindh Chamber of Agriculture, Hyderabad and Federation Chambers of Agriculture, Pakistan, Qamar-ur-Zaman Shah told Dawn on telephone that the government this year has set such stringent condition for wheat procurement, which could not be met by any grower.

He said that wheat procurement by the government has almost come to a standstill as the field staff is asking for last year’s tax documents, wheat specifications including moisture contents and percentage of sieve carried out for removing stones, etc.

All such restrictions numbering up to 20 being asked to be met by growers, Qamar-ur-Zaman said, are being made on a plea that the wheat would be exported and to ensure that procurement is made from genuine growers and not from middlemen.

“The cost of input has already gone up due to shortage of irrigation water and extensive use of tubewells run by diesel,” he lamented. Instead of getting a relief against such adverse factors, he said, a grower is being asked to make illegal gratifications up to Rs100 per 40 kg to procurement staff.

“Growers are the victim of production glut and it could well prove a negative factor for higher yields in the seasons to come,” a progressive agriculturists predicted and suggested that the government should remove the bottlenecks in the system after taking an objective view of the situation.

Presently, the government have huge carry over stocks of wheat of last two years crop. According to estimates, around 1.5m tons of unsold wheat is still lying in government godowns.

Official sources said that around one million tons of last year (2000) crop and 0.5 million of 2001 are still lying with Punjab and PASSCO. Consequently, in the absence of sufficient and adequate storage facilities much of the new crop estimated at around 19 million tons is likely to stay in open resulting in deterioration in quality as well as high wastage.

Against a target of one million tons of wheat only 0.480 million tons have been exported so far leaving huge unsold stocks in government godowns. As usual Afghanistan has got around one million tons of wheat from Pakistan during this period.

Anis Majeed chairman Karachi Wholesale Grocers Group apprehends that if the government does not look into brewing wheat crisis, it may have to face the wrath of growers who about two years ago expressed their anger by blocking the G T Road in Punjab.