October 23, 2007	Tuesday	Shawwal 10, 1428

ISLAMABAD, Oct 22: The Federal Committee on Agriculture (FCA) is likely to set the wheat production target at 24 million tons for 2007-08, which would be 1.5 million tons more than the last year’s achieved target, when it meets here on Tuesday.A copy of the Rabi crops targets proposed by the Federal Ministry of Food, Agriculture and Livestock (Minfal) to FCA, which was made available to Dawn, reveals that the government is under immense pressure following the recent wheat flour crisis which saw the prices touching new heights.

Sources told Dawn that the target seemed too much optimistic to be practical. The FCA meeting, they said, can also make changes into the proposed targets. However, the committee is expected to fix the major crop’s target at a level which could not give the impression of another wheat flour crisis next season.

Last season, the country produced 22.5 million tons of wheat. The meeting will also revise the sugarcane and rice targets.Ironically, there is no mention of any tomato target in the Minfal’s document. A source told Dawn that tomato seemed to be the least priority of the FCA despite the fact that tomato’s price reached at Rs140 per kg last week. The target for gram has been proposed at 760,000 tons which will be achieved by sowing on an area of 1.1 million hectares. Last season, the country produced 706,000 over a million hectares.

This Rabi’s potato production is expected to be 600,000 tons less than that of last year’s. Minfal has proposed 2.1 million tons of potato production in 2007-08 compared to 1.7 million tons last year.About 100,000 tons reduction is also expected in the onion production target. In last Rabi, the country achieved 2.1 million tons of onion.