SWABI: If the current dry spell prevails for two or three weeks it would badly affect the wheat production in the district. It is to mention here that almost 60 per cent of land in the district is arid and depends on rainfall for production.

This was disclosed at a meeting of the farmers’ leaders here on Tuesday, which was convened by the Kashtkar Coordination Council (KCC). Local leaders of the Kisan Board (KB) and Anjuman-i-Kashthkaran (AK), Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, were in attendance.

The organisers said that main objective of the meeting was to discuss the various problems confronting the farmers in view of the drought, and to suggest measures to the government to rescue them out of their predicament.

Speaking at the meeting, Liaqat Yousufzai, the KCC general secretary, said that if there was no rainfall in coming days, it would adversely affect the wheat production in the district. “In the entire Gadoon belt wheat production is linked with regular rainfall,” he added.

Alam Sher Gohati, district president of AK, said that over 60 per cent of land in the district was arid and that if the current drought lingered on the production of wheat would be gravely reduced.

Khalid Khan, district president of KB, said that farmers in Swabi had yet to benefit from the modern know-how to boost agriculture production, and asked the government to provide assistance to the farmers so they could enhance their production.

BODIES FOUND: The police on Tuesday recovered bodies of two young men from the bank of River Indus in Chota Lahor tehsil here.

Officials said that the area people informed the police about the presence of the bodies dumped in the fields. He said that the police reached the area soon after receiving the information and shifted the bodies to hospital for postmortem.

When contacted, district police officer, Sajjad Khan, confirmed the recovery of the two bodies and said that the police were investigating the incident to ascertain identity of the two victims and how they were killed.

Published in Dawn, December 10th, 2014