13 January 2004	Tuesday	20 Ziqa'ad 1424

LAHORE, Jan 12: The Punjab has sown wheat on 15.429 million acres by Jan 3 against its current year's target of 15.350 million acres -- an improvement of 100.52 per cent.

According to the statistics of the Crop Reporting Service of the Punjab Agriculture Department, the province had sown crop on 15.303 million acres last year and this year's acreage represents 0.83 per cent growth over the last year.

The province managed a final yield of over 15 million tons. Farmers, however, contest the final production figure by big margin. This year's target is 16 million tons.

The figures are almost final, says an official of the department, because usually no one sows the crop after December. It is due to abysmally low yield that hardly justifies investment on the crop.

He said that had the government announced increase in support price for next year by September last year or even October, there could have been substantial increase in acreage this year.

But, the government kept the decision right up to third week of November, a deadline for optimum yield of crop, and did not help growers in deciding in favour of the crop, he said.