PESHAWAR: The Khyber Pakhtunkhwa government has increased the allocation for Insaf Food Security Programme (IFSP) from Rs190 million to Rs1.2 billion for the current (first) year of its three-year project, which will benefit 978,000 farmers.

Presiding over a meeting regarding arrangements for distribution of free of cost wheat seed under IFSP, held at the CM Secretariat on Wednesday, Chief Minister Pervez Khattak announced that subsidy on fertilizers would also be given to farmers from next year in a bid to increase wheat production in the province.

The enhanced amount, he said, would be used to procure certified wheat seed for free distribution among farmers of the province holding one to12.5 acres. The project is part of the present PTI-led government’s agenda for making the province self-sufficient in wheat production by facilitating the farmers and landowners.

He asked the agriculture department to work out financial implications and benefits of provision of subsidised fertilizers to the farmers so that the proposed scheme could be included in the next year’s budget.

Mr Khattak also directed the department to make such arrangements which could ensure self-reliance in the safe and certified wheat seed of acceptable and popular varieties.

He said that since procurement of wheat and seed from Punjab province cost heavily to the provincial exchequer, it was essential to produce at least as much wheat locally as to meet the need of the whole province.

He said that for this purpose the present government had initiated a three-year scheme under IFSP at a cost of Rs3.78 billion to provide free and certified wheat seed to the farmers.

He said that in return the farmers would have to sell half of the produce to the provincial government.

The chief minister also asked the agriculture department to expedite the process of seed procurement and its distribution and make effective publicity of the scheme to inform the beneficiaries.

According to a statement, the meeting was informed that about 978,000 farmers would be benefited from the scheme in three years while each year 25 per cent increase in wheat harvest worth Rs5 billion was expected.

The district director of agriculture department and revenue officials in every district would scrutinise the farmers’ applications for issuing them free seed, while the seed will be distributed by the district level committees which will also include local labour councillors.

The meeting was informed that following announcement of the scheme the demand for certified seed had reached to 20,000 tons while the agriculture department had so far placed orders for procurement of 16,300 tons of certified seed. It was stated that a total area of 978,000 acres would be cultivated in three years.

Provincial Minister for Agriculture Ikramullah Gandapur, parliamentary secretary for agriculture Zarin Zia, MPAs Samiullah Khan and Arbab Jehandad and other relevant officials attended the meeting.

Published in Dawn, October 8th, 2015

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