SUKKUR: A large number of growers belonging to Sukkur, Khairpur and Ghotki districts held a demonstration outside the local press club on Sunday against the government’s failure to increase procurement rate of different crops.

The demonstration was led by Sindh Hari Committee and Awami Jamhoori Party including Comrade Mir Munawwar Talpur, Hakeem Zangejo, Shah Mohammed Indhar, Malik Khoso, Mohammed Bukhsh Kaladi and Ghulam Mustafa Jumani.

The leaders told the media that farmers were facing losses due to the government’s indifference towards their demand of an increase in the official procurement rates of various crops.

They argued that the cost of production had increased due to high inflation as the rates of all agricultural inputs had gone up manifold over the past years. No reasonable upward revision of the official procurement rates had been made to match the inflation, they said, adding that their produce was selling at a throwaway price. This had pushed most farmers below the poverty line, they added.

The protesters said that they and their families were facing starvation due to the heavy losses they had been suffering over the years.

The leaders said that 70 per cent population of the country depended on farming but but government could not evolve a policy to give a boost to the agriculture sector and bring about an improvement in the lifestyle of the peasant segment, which remained under the burden of the loans that continued to soar. Peasant families could not even afford medical treatment due to poverty, they said.

They urged the government to fix the official rate of sugar cane at Rs250/40kg, cotton Rs4,000/40kg and paddy at Rs1,250/40kg, besides increasing the rates of other crops keeping in view the already increased production cost.

HYDERABAD: The Sindh Chamber of Agriculture (SCA) in its meeting held here on Sunday urged the government to refix the rate of paddy crop as its prices had significantly declined in the market.

The meeting was chaired by SCA president Dr Syed Nadeem Qamar. It expressed concern over the fact that the crop’s rate had come down to Rs750-800/40kg although a notification fixing it at Rs900/40kg had earlier been issued by the agriculture department.

It said that farmers were being exploited by traders in the market. It also urged the government to fix the support price of Rs1,000/40kg for Irri-6 (coarse variety), which was mostly grown in Sindh, for one year without any delay.

The meeting noted that the falling prices of crops in the market had hit farmers economically. “On the one hand, farmers are getting a low price and, on the other, rice mills owners are making deductions. Farmers are in double jeopardy and facing heavy losses.”

The meeting stressed that it’s millers, and not farmers, who had to pay for offloading of crop as per the market committee rules but it was other way round now.

It said that Pakistan’s exports of Irri-6 stood at $1.3 billion. In the last few years, framers had remained disappointed due to the price factor and the area under paddy cultivation would shrink.

The meeting said that farmers in five districts — Shikarpur, Kandhkot-Kashmore, Jacobabad, Larkana and Qambar-Shahdadkot cultivated only one crop of rice and if they didn’t get its adequate price then they would be economic devastated.

The meeting regretted that the agriculture department remained a silent spectator although it had informed the Sindh High Court, Larkana circuit bench, earlier that Rs900/40kg had been fixed for paddy crop.

The meeting called for binding sugar mills to commence crushing from Nov 15 as per the decision taken in the Oct 7 meeting.

It also demanded a ban on the movement of sugar cane crop from Punjab and the sugar mills of Ghotki be restrained from getting a single trolley of sugar cane from their Punjab farms to save Ghotki’s cane growers from losses.

The SCA repeated its call for setting aside Rs100-billion to extend interest-free loans to farmers in Sindh.

The meeting was attended by Nabi Bux Sathio, Zahid Bhurgari, Mohammad Khan Sarjeo and others.

Published in Dawn, October 17th, 2016