LAHORE: With around 84 per cent of the harvesting and 75 per cent threshing completed, the Punjab is still debating the final size of its wheat crop -- its latest estimates now range between 18 million tonnes and 19.10 million tonnes.

Lately, Punjab tried to revise its expected yield down to 18 million tonnes (down from 19.50 million tonnes) but was very heavily snubbed by the federal government for bringing the national production figures down by 1.5 million tonnes, or, in monitory terms, a loss of Rs45 billion – grossly affecting the GDP.

The Punjab bureaucracy is now sticking to 19.10 million tonnes, to feed right signals to the market – keeping prices stable because of less production – and save the federal wrath for causing a GDP disaster. Though, unofficially, it still insists that actual figures might not go beyond 18 million tonnes.

“The crop, on average, lost 100 to 125 sunshine hours in the province,” explains an official of the Punjab Agriculture Department. Against normal 950 sunshine hours, it received only 825 hours. This cloudy weather, coupled with heavy downpour in certain areas gave excessive vegetative growth to the crop in many areas, hitting the grain filling process.

March alone brought over 300 millimeters rains, together with wind and hailstorms, in some parts of the central Punjab. This explains grain shriveling in certain parts of the province and drop in grain weight. These conditions seem to have driven almost a million tonnes hole in overall figures. The Punjab is finalising field trial to firm up the final figures, but debate within the official circles is intense - how to justify the figures it is hoping for, without attracting the federal ire.

The weather problem hit progressive growers, who had kept their crop well fed, both with fertiliser and water, says another official. Once this crop got additional rains, its vegetative growth became hugely excessive, eating into grains’ health. Small farmers, who could not afford the luxury of full dose of fertiliser, actually gained out of rains. This, the progressive growers lost of production and smaller ones gained. But the field formations still say that the Punjab would not, in any way, go down 19 million tonnes. The arrival of around 200,000 tonnes at the Food Department centres and dispersal of over 150,000 tonnes gunny bags testify to these claims. But since the issue has become sensitive for the Punjab government, everyone is keeping a mum on it. It is typical case of caught between devil and deep blue sea: The Punjab does not want to give a healthy figures for the fear of wheat price; millers and traders are going slow on purchase knowing that massive quantity is still in the pipeline. The province cannot project a lower figure for fear of the federal government, cut in GDP and lenders later questioning growth figures. However, the situation should clear itself in the next few days as the Punjab has to release final figures, which it hopefully would do when the impact of announcement on market is estimated to be minimum, he concluded.

Published in Dawn, May 10th, 2015

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