May 27, 2008	Tuesday	Jamadi-ul-Awwal 21, 1429

Khurshid Anwar Khan

MIANWALI, May 26: Multiple reasons have been cited for the failure to achieve the desired results of wheat procurement in the district so far that include raids on farmers’ farm houses, allowing flour mills to stock wheat, middlemen’s hidden stocks and purchase of wheat by the Punjab Seed Corporation (PSC).

A Food department report says that it has procured 37,254 metric tons of wheat by Monday while 55,000 metric tons of wheat had been procured last year during the same period.

The department is optimistic only to achieve the last year’s target whereas the current year’s target has been doubled by the high-ups.

The Punjab Seed Corporation has also procured 2,374 flour bags of 100kg from farmers in the district.

The food department has established five purchase centres in the district at Isakhel, Mari-Indus, Piplan, Wan-Bhachran and Mianwali which are struggling to achieve the target.

It is observed that the slow progress in wheat procurement is due to the reluctance shown by farmers to sell their commodity at the price fixed by the government.

Farmers said that a large portion of their crop had been destroyed due to untimely rains and heavy frost and that the government should fix the wheat support price at Rs1,250 per 40kg so as to enable them to recover their expenses.

Most of their expenses, they said, were incurred on the purchase of fertilizers the prices of which had registered a 300 per cent staggering increase during the past few weeks.

The government is purchasing wheat at Rs625 per 40kg with an additional Rs25 expenses for transportation. While grain market brokers are approaching growers in their fields with a lucrative offer of Rs750 to Rs800 per 40kg, depending on the quality of wheat.

The food department is raiding farm houses of growers to impound wheat just to achieve the procurement target without taking into account farmers’ personal use of yield and seeds.

Looking quite worried, district officer (agriculture) Faiz Muhammad Kundi said that it seemed difficult even to achieve the previous year’s wheat procurement target.

He said the wheat had been cultivated on 428,000 acres of land in the district with an expected yield of 800kg per acre.

He said it was estimated that only 97,556 metric tons of wheat would be left with the growers after deducting their personal use and seeds.

Under the prevailing situation, he said, the target to procure 110,000 metric tons of wheat in the district looked somewhat impossible.

Muhammad Khan, a wheat grower of Chidroo, said that loadshedding, unfavourable weather and inflation in agricultural inputs had doubled the per acre cultivation expenditures which resulted in much less yield this year.

He said most of growers were preferring to sell their produce in the open market instead of sale points to recover their cost.

Malik Ahmed Khan, another wheat grower of Piplan, said that unavoidable circumstances had caused reduction in the per acre yield this year.

“Since the price of wheat is increasing almost every day the growers have started withholding the yield for few days to earn more profit”, he said.

EDO (Revenue) Syed Ali Oast Shah said that growers were selling their produce in the open market despite the fact that the government had taken strict measures against the hoarders.

He said purchasing of wheat by the PSC and granting of permission to flour mills to store their target were other factors affecting the procurement target.