LAHORE, May 24: The government has again set an unrealistic production target of 5.7 million tons of rice for the next year and that too without any concrete steps to achieve it, said farmers associations here on Thursday.
Despite the fact that the country has missed the 5.6 million tons target for the current year by 200,000 tons, the government has projected the fabulous target for next season. This “Alice in wonderland policy,” would not get the country and its farming sector anywhere, they claimed.
The production achieved this year is less than the last year’s 5.5 million tons. The target for Punjab last year was fixed 3.2 million tons against the actual production of 3 million tons - a shortfall of 5.6 per cent. Sindh achieved 1.76 million tons against a target of 1.80 million tons, falling short by 2.5 per cent. NWFP met the production target of 0.1 million tons and Balochistan fell short by 230,000 tons - production of 0.47 million against target of 0.50 million tons.
In this scenario, increasing production, that too without correspondingly increasing acreage, hardly makes sense, they said. Last year, the acreage was 6.37 million acres, which has set to 6.4 million acres for the next year.
“The rice production, like every other crop, depends on four crucial factors, which are: seed, research, mechanisation and water,” says Ibrahim Mughal of AgriForum. “None of them has undergone any change, leave alone improvement. Why the government has set this target is only playing to the gallery, courtesy political compulsions of an election year”.“Usage of certified seed has been constant at 20 per cent for the last many years,” he says. It would not be possible to achieve next year’s target without substantially increasing usage of certified seed.
It is especially true when there has been no increase in acreage. Increasing yield by bringing more area under sowing is never an option and no one in the world takes it, he claimed.
The current variety of Super basmati was invented in 1996 and has outlived its utility, says Farooq Bajwa of the Farmers Associate Pakistan (FAP). It has grown old, lost it resistance to most of the diseases and its yield has been on the decline. With the same variety in vogue, the country can hardly expect to make any substantial achievement, he added.
Instead of coming up with a new variety, which could help the country break production barrier, the government mechanically increase production target every year and see it missing by a healthy margin, he remarked.
“It is politically convenient for the government to set high target, harp on it for next few months and forget it quietly. This pattern has been going on for the last many years,” he observed.
This year the electricity and diesel are more expensive which run tube-wells to supplement water, crucial for rice production, says Farooq Akhter of the Kissan Board Pakistan.
Power charges have gone up by 10 per cent and diesel price by Rs4 a litre as compared to last year. On what basis the government has concluded that additional rice production could be achieved is anybody’s guess, he added.
The government knows that the late supply of water caused shortfall last year. But, it has insisted on additional target in spite of knowing it full well that supplement water would be problematic for farmers, he said.
