The government of Sindh has invited fresh bids for the construction of bulk wheat storage facilities in the province. Officials say they had to scrap prequalification bids received for this project last year on technical grounds, adding that fresh tenders were called in January this year.

The closing date for receiving fresh prequalification bids expired last week.

The plan is to shortlist the prequalification bids and hold a meeting with the successful bidders sometime next month, to develop final bid documents to be issued in May and final bids to be invited in July. A public private partnership contract is being foreseen by the officials for the construction of a silos complex, with a capacity of several thousand tonnes of wheat silos by the end of September this year.

The Punjab government is also working on a similar project to have additional storage facilities for wheat. Both projects are aimed at boosting grains storage capacity by 650,000 tonnes through construction of 22 silos across Pakistan.

Pakistan Agricultural Supplies and Services Corporation (PASSCO) is also among the agencies that are involved in execution of this project being co-funded by local authorities, the IDB and USAID. The IFC is also providing technical support. And PASSCO has decided to build two new storage warehouses in Punjab, one in Khanewal and the other in Hafizabad.

Work on these projects is progressing. Once completed these warehouses would provide additional storage capacity of 370,000 tonnes. PASSCO plans to use them for storing graded seeds.

From preservation of seed stocks to storing grains for sales to maintaining strategic food reserves, improper storage causes problems and financial losses at every stage. Constant upgrading of storage facilities is a must not only to ensure food security but also to strike a right balance between food exports and local consumption.

A majority of growers across Pakistan still rely on centuries-old ways of storing grains to obtain seeds or to use them as food. On-farm storage, for food consumption and for obtaining seeds, is still done in open-air sheds or dome-shaped semi-concrete or concrete structures. These structures are vulnerable to infestation in summer season and difficult to fumigate and are. They vary in sizes and the largest ones cannot accommodate more than 1500 tonnes of grains.

In the village homes, farmers store grains in gunny bags and large earthen or metallic bins or pots of varying capacity, the maximum not reaching half a tonne in most cases. In some villages dome or cone-shaped mud structures are also used for grain storage jointly by multiple families.

In all these cases, the stored grain remains exposed to damage due to bad weather and infestation. “This explains one basic reason behind lower-than-required availability of quality seeds that, in turn, affects crop yields,” says a senior official of Sindh Agriculture Department.

Large silos and storage sheds, normally capable of holding up to 5,000 tonnes of grains are almost non-existent in the private sector. These are operated by food departments of provinces and the federally run Pakistan Agricultural Storage and Services Corporation.

Storage of food grains, especially wheat, is so flawed that the resultant losses in the quality sometimes leaves a large part of stored grains unfit for human consumption. In the recent past, a much-trumpeted wheat-for-fertilizer barter deal with Iran could not be materialized because the Iranian team that inspected wheat stocks in Pakistan found it of very poor quality and opted for imports from India, recalls an official privy to this matter.

Storage of grains in the open-air sheds is particularly damaging. An IFC report back in 2010 had estimated that in Pakistan, up to 70 per cent of wheat is stored in open-air sheds. Officials of food department say that they too often have to use open-air rented sheds for grain storage, when they start procuring fresh wheat grains from farms and the available buffer stocks are huge.

“That’s where the quality suffers most, because some unscrupulous elements within the department rent out even poorly managed privately owned storage facilities,” concedes a senior official.

Lately progressive growers in Punjab and Sindh have started using small steel silos for storing grains after learning the lesson the hard way during the super floods of 2010. Some of them, belonging to Sindh, say that a number of iron and steel companies in Punjab have been manufacturing steel silos and even exporting them but local sales have picked up only after 2010.

They say ‘silo bags’ can also add to proper storage facilities but their imports need to be facilitated. Silo bags are specially designed hermetic bags that can store a few maunds of grains under such conditions that prevent infestation by squeezing oxygen levels. Prices of Chinese silo bags that are being widely used, range from $500 to $10,000 per set depending upon their quality and the material used in manufacturing; each set capable of storing 2-60 tonnes of grains.

Growers say these bags can provide the best temporary alternative to steel silos. But the issue is that manufacturers sell silo bags in large numbers and lots of small and medium growers cannot afford to import them.

—Mohiuddin Aazim

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