May 10, 2007	Thursday	Rabi-us-Sani 22, 1428

ISLAMABAD, May 9: The government should ensure timely procurement of wheat from farmers, at the official support price, to relieve the poor farmers from the clutches of middlemen, who have been exploiting the situation.

Due to delayed commencement of procurement of wheat by the Pakistan Agriculture Storage and Services Corporation (Paasco) and the Provincial Food Department, farmers having no alternative, were being forced to sell their wheat produce to the middlemen at a rate of Rs390 to Rs400 per 40 kgs, which hardly covered their cost of production.

Speaking at a joint news briefing here on Wednesday, the assistant executive director of the Sustainable Development Policy Institute (SDPI), Dr Abid Suleri, lamented that the scenario was forcing the rural farmers to migrate to larger urban centres in search of a better source of livelihood, as agriculture was no longer a sustainable source of livelihood for their families.

“If this trend continues, very soon Pakistan will become a net importing country, in terms of staple food crops like wheat,” he warned.

He said the government had fixed Rs425 per 40 kilogrammes as the support price of wheat, before the current Rabbi season began, by adding just Rs10 to the last year’s support price of Rs415 per 40 kgs.

While on the other hand, the agricultural input prices rose at a staggering 30 per cent to 40 per cent rate, as against the nominal increase of 2.43 per cent allowed in the wheat support price for this year, he pointed out.

The chief coordinator of the Pakistan Kissan Ittehad (PKI) Malik Abdul Majeed Cheena, said it was the small farmer who put all his energies to secure food not only for his own family but also for over 155 million population of Pakistan.

He said it was through the hard work and labour of small farmers, Pakistan today was not only self-sufficient in wheat production, but was in a position to export the surplus.

Mr Cheena demanded of the government to increase the wheat support price to at least Rs500 per 40 kgs, keeping in view the increasing cost of production. Additionally, procurement centres should begin making purchases by the first week of April.

The secretary of SAAG, Shujaat Ali Khan, demanded that procurement centres should stop issuing gunny bags to middlemen, as they (middlemen) were not giving these bags to the farmers owing to last year’s debt burden.

He said government should curtail the influence of the landlords and other influential people on procurement centres, with respect to the issuance of gunny bags, and instead issue these directly to small farmers on a personal guarantee.

He said government should start wheat procurement in the first week of April, as delayed procurement benefited only the middlemen. This was because small farmers are in dire need of cash, not only to meet their day to day expenditures, but also for purchasing various agricultural inputs for the next —Kharif— season’s crop.

The president of the Sawera Foundation, Advocate Chishtian Tariq Mehmood, held Passco and the Food Department responsible for the current messy situation.

While criticizing the cumbersome transaction procedure for the sale and purchase of wheat, at the procurement centres, especially in obtaining the gunny bags (bardana), he said under the current policy, a farmer could get a maximum of 100 gunny bags from a procurement centre.

A small farmer, already short of cash, has to prepare a call deposit of Rs5,300, at the rate of Rs53 per gunny bag in a bank, for getting 100 gunny bags.

The farmer then has to submit the call deposit in the procurement centre to get the gunny bags.

In return, he (farmer) has to wait for at least four to five days for the payment of his money by the procurement centre. Again, the illiterate small farmer has to face another problem, as he would have to open and operate a bank account for getting his cheque cashed; the cheque that he gets from the procurement centre, as payment.

Mr Mehmood demanded of the government to simplify the payment procedure for farmers, either by arranging direct cash payments to them, or alternatively, through an easier process of an open cheque.

While the illiterate farmer had to go through this ordeal, big land lords and the influential could get as many gunny bags from the procurement centres as they wished, which was not fair, he concluded.