November 8, 2003	Saturday	Ramazan 12, 1424

LAHORE, Nov 7: Delayed cane crushing is building a grim scenario for the next wheat crop as a little over one eighth of the wheat land is covered by sugarcane in Punjab.

As Pakistan Sugar Mills Association continues to stick to its decision of undertaking crushing after its stocks are disposed of, chances of wheat sowing commencing on time are diminishing. That is certain to be reflected negatively in the next crop of wheat.

Wheat cultivated after November 20 starts losing yield by about one per cent per day. Punjab, the largest wheat land in the country with the crop sown on about 16 million acres, has an area of around 2.5 million acres under sugarcane. This roughly comes to a little over eight per cent of wheat acreage in the province.

No assessment of the possible damage can be made at this point in time, but it may be safely said that if wheat is not cultivated on time in cane areas of Punjab, the minimum loss of yield could be one million tons. In financial terms, this could run in to millions of rupees and even worse, force the country to import wheat to meet domestic needs.

Wheat is alternated with rice, cotton and sugarcane in Pakistan. However, as cycle of cultivation and harvesting is ahead of Punjab in Sindh, also an important wheat producing province, Sindh is not confronted with this predicament, though delayed crushing has other repercussions for farmers of the province.

Wheat would also be under pressure from cotton as apart of the crop has not been cleared because of the pest attack and some farmers are still hopeful of breaking even with the third picking. That is not exactly a serious threat to wheat as acreage exposed to this problem is limited. But delayed crushing is an established recipe for scuttled wheat yield.

One of the reasons of relative low wheat yield in Pakistan is delayed cultivation. In the Punjab province across the border, wheat cultivation is disallowed after November 30. However, the authorities in India’s Punjab and Haryana states ensure a level- playing field for farmers by providing them the basic facilities like timely cane harvesting to help growers keep the wheat sowing appointment.

No such facilities and discipline exists in Pakistan where farmers are almost invariably threatened with losses in cotton as prices are manipulated against their interests by market forces and sugar mill owners exploit farmers by refusing to clear their dues from the cane crop.

The federal government has tried to resolve the situation by deciding to procure 0.2 million tons of sugar from mill owners as buffer stock but the Pakistan Sugar Mills Association (PSMA) has not warmed to the offer as it is tied to settling farmer’s dues.

The government wants crushing started latest by November 15 but there is no response from the PSMA. It has deferred the decision to the return of its Chairman’s return from abroad. He is a member of the President General Musharraf’s entourage on the China visit. The central executive committee of PSMA would meet after his return to take a decision on the date for commencing crushing.

However, even if crushing starts on Nov 15, it would be late for the next wheat crop as previous time would have been lost for timely cultivation by then. Farmers would need about a fortnight for wheat sowing unless they use zero tillage technology that allows them to cultivate wheat without clearing the previous crop.

Another result of delayed harvesting of cane would be reduced residual moisture in the land that the farmers using conservation methods benefit from. This is important in the current state of water shortage that has resulted in reduced share of Sindh and Punjab for water in the coming seasons.

All in all, the cane controversy has already created a problem for the next wheat crop. The only unassessed factor is the dimension of the loss. The government can try to get it minimized by ensuring that there is no further delay in crushing, whatever the state of negotiations between the authorities and the PSMA.