ISLAMABAD: The government has set the production target of 26 million tonnes for wheat during the just-started Rabi season 2014-15.

The wheat production target was decided at a meeting of the Federal Committee on Agriculture on Tuesday.

Presiding over the meeting, Minister for National Food Security and Research Sikandar Hayat Khan Bosan said that last month’s floods have increased land fertility which would result in increased wheat production next year.

After the FCA meeting, Mr Bosan told a news conference that enough soil moisture has opened a window of opportunity for farmers to fully exploit the conditions and sow enough wheat seeds to get good harvest.

Mr Bosan expressed satisfaction over water availability during the rabi season. Irrigation water should first be given to crops in Sindh followed by the Punjab, he said.

About availability of inputs, the minister said except urea, phosphate and certified wheat seeds will be made available to farmers. The government will import 185,000 tonnes of urea as per a decision of the ECC.

The committee was informed that certified wheat seed availability would be 25 per cent of the requirements.

An official of State Bank told the meeting that allocations of institutional credit for agriculture had substantially increased to Rs500 billion during the current fiscal year in comparison with Rs380bn in 2013-14.

It had been decided at the ECC level that 35,000 to 40,000 tonnes of urea would be imported each month. However, keeping in view the requirements, it has now been decided to import the entire 185,000 tonnes at one time so that farmers do not face shortage of urea during the months of November to January.

The ministry has taken up the issue of uninterrupted gas supply to fertiliser plants so that deficit in urea supply could be bridged from local production, he said.

The current projections for urea fertiliser availability have been put at 2.49 million tonnes against the estimated off-take of 3.1 million tonnes, with a confirmed import of 0.185 million tonnes. The supply of DAP for 2014-15 rabi season has been estimated to be 1024,000 tonnes against its requirements of 800,000 tonnes.

According to statistics presented at the FCA meeting, wheat production from 2013-14 rabi season has been estimated to be 25.29 million tonnes from an area of 9.40 million hectares.

The production level sho­w­ed increase of 4.0pc over the previous year’s production. After meeting domestic wheat consumption and export, the government currently has over 7 million tonnes of wheat in public sector stocks.

The committee was informed that sugarcane production for 2014-2015 was estimated at 64.74 million tonnes from an area of 1.13 million hectares. Rice production was estimated to be around 6.72m tonnes from an area of 2.76 million hectares.

The meeting was atten­ded by senior officials of provincial agricultural departments, Pakis­tan Meteorological Depart­ment, State Bank, ZTBL, National Fertiliser Develop­ment Cen­tre, Passco, Pakis­t­an Oilseed Development Board.

Published in Dawn, October 15th , 2014