ISLAMABAD, Oct 18: Procurement of wheat seed fell sharply to 160,000 tons this year reducing the availability of certified seed for Rabi 2002-03 crop to 11.98 per cent of total estimated requirement, according to official statistics.

It has been the endeavour of agriculture authorities to raise the area covered under certified seed to 20 per cent of total wheat acreage for many years, experts told Dawn.

This could, however, become possible only if the farmers use seed of the varieties recommended by the government on the basis of their being free of disease and resistant to adverse weather conditions.

The very low quantity of seed procured this year may imply a reversal in the trend of recent years. An analysis of figures shows Punjab leading other provinces in this respect. It achieved 14.53pc of the target. Next on the performance scale was NWFP (5.50pc). Sindh and Balochistan achieved 4.89pc and 0.53pc, respectively, of the target.

This may be attributable to Punjab having a better infrastructure in the shape of public sector seed corporation.

For the last many years, the certified seed coverage was extremely low: less than 10pc. Things have changed for the better. In 2000-01, the government agencies and private sector collected 176,000 tons of seed.

Thus that was the first time the procurement exceeded the target with the proportion of seed procured rising above 20pc. This was presumably because of the record wheat harvest of 21 million tons. Faced with glut, the farmers were looking desperately for ways to dispose of their surplus grains. Not surprisingly, therefore, the procurement exceeded the minimum 20 per cent requirement by over 4pc.

The second highest percentage was achieved by Balochistan (15.26pc). It was followed by NWFP with 11.45pc procurement, with Sindh continuing to hug the ground with only 8.09pc of the target.

The relevant agencies, however, failed to maintain the tempo later. Thus in 2001-02, the wheat output was down to its historical level (about 18.7 million tons). The seed procurement too plummeted to 168,000 tons.

Punjab was on top after yielding 123,000 tons or 20.15pc of minimum seed requirement. Balochistan achieved 17.02pc of the official target. In Sindh, the situation improved considerably as it procured 11.86pc of the target. NWFP was at the bottom. In that province, the procurement was 7.78pc of the target.

Policymakers were, however, worried about the steady decline in the seed procurement operations by the private sector. The Federal Committee on Agriculture (FCA), at its recent meeting, ordered a probe into the decline. Within the last three years, it was noted, the quantity of seed procured by private sector agencies dropped from 79,128 tons in 2000 to 40,279 in 2002. But the down-turn was even steeper in NWFP and Balochistan. It trickled to 310 tons in NWFP, as compared to 2479 tons in 2000.

In Balochistan, the private sector was completely absent from the procurement business. For that matter, the procurement was only negligible even in 2000—375 tons.

According to experts, the negligible use of certified seed in Pakistan was largely attributable to lack of awareness among farmers of the benefits of using treated seed. This also indicates failure of the Agriculture Extension Services.

These services, they point out, are present only in villages on the main roads or on the estates of big landowners. To all intents and purposes, they are non-existent in all the other villages including Barani areas.