Even though wheat crop on his two-acre land is ready for harvest, Ali Mohammad Mirjat, an elderly peasant, has little cause for being happy this year as his hard-earned produce did not fetch him the price he had expected.

He had to sell off his wheat at Rs1,150 per 40 kilogrammes in Jhando Mari taluka. Still, he considered himself lucky to get that price, which was Rs250 less than the support price of Rs1,300 per 40kg, because the market price was on the decline by each passing day.

He would, however, get only 25 per cent share in profit, for he did not share cost of input with the landowner. A peasant usually shares expenses on crop sowing as well as profit with the landowner on 50-50 share formula.

Though farmers are reaping a better harvest because of favourable weather conditions this year, peasants like Mirjat have little prospects of earning profit in current season due to falling price of wheat caused by Sindh government’s delay in procuring the crop which has already reached open market.

Extended winter season and rainfall at crucial stage of the grain formation have benefitted the crop considerably and increased wheat productivity. Farmers are reaping 2,000 to 2,200kg wheat per acre though Sindh’s average per acre yield remains 1,320 to 1,360kg as per agriculture department’s figures.

And it is in spite of the fact that Sindh has missed the wheat sowing target by 9pc as 1,046,845 hectares area could be brought under wheat cultivation in 2018-19 season against a target of 1,150,000ha (2.8m acres).

Last year, the province had missed the target by a marginal 3.9pc. Sindh had produced 4.2 million tonnes of wheat in 2009-10 and four million tonnes in 2013-14. Since then it did not cross four million mark as the production vacillated between at 3.6m tonnes to 3.9m tonnes till 2017-18.

The Sindh government is reluctant to buy the crop since it already had last year’s carryover stocks to dispose of while Punjab government has decided to purchase four million tonnes of the grain from farmers despite having carryover stocks.

The government’s wheat procurement system has been made so complex for farmers and it is so plagued with corruption that majority of small and medium famers do not get support price for their produce and they normally sell it in open market or to middlemen.

The procurement was supposed to start from April 1. Since the food department was said to be having 0.7m tonnes to 0.8m tonnes of carryover stocks and the new crop was again likely to be bumper some cabinet members advised the government not to procure it this year, sources said.

The food department has though sent a summary for procurement of 0.5m tonnes wheat crop to the chief minister and the provincial cabinet is to take a decision in this regard. Once the summary is approved, tenders will be floated to purchase gunny bags, which will take so long that farmers will already have sold major portion of their harvest by then.

The support price of Rs1,300 per 40kg has been unchanged since 2014-15 which farmers like Nabi Bux Sathio of Sindh Chamber of Agriculture believe must be increased in view of rising cost of inputs and withdrawal of subsides on fertilisers, increased fuel prices and miscellaneous expenses.

The Sindh Agriculture Research Department had assessed cost of production last and this year at Rs1,317 per 40kg and proposed fixation of support price at Rs1,448 per 40kg with 10pc profit margin. Sindh Abadgar Board (SAB), however, has calculated it at Rs1,200 per 40kg.

“A bag of urea fertiliser was available for Rs1,380 and DAP fertiliser for Rs2,600 until 2017-18 season and this time their price has increased to Rs1,850 and Rs3,850 per bag, respectively, after withdrawal of subsidy,” said Mr Sathio.

“Traders also deduct one kg on each 40kg of the crop which is again another loss to us. We are giving 40kg of wheat and getting the price for 39kg by traders on the pretext of crop wastage which is unjustified as there is no wastage,” he said.

Another possible reason for the food department’s reluctance to begin the procurement is its lack of storage capacity which limits its purchases to a certain quantity. The food department has a capacity to store 700,000 to 750,000 tonnes of the grain.

The department has to rent private premises to keep over one million tonnes or 1.1m tonnes of the crop. In last season, 1.4m tonnes of wheat was purchased by the department.

Hyderabad-based grain traders claimed that Sindh’s wheat was also going to Punjab where the harvest started later than in Sindh. Rainfall has damaged their crop in 15 districts but Punjab has sizeable carryover stocks and there is currently no inter-provincial ban on the movement of wheat.

“To me the damage to the crop in Punjab is not much. Sindh’s crop reaches Punjab which starts harvesting after some time,” said Mehmood Nawaz Shah, a representative of SAB.

The government’s subsidy in the shape of support price does not normally reach farmers and is mostly pocketed by middlemen in collusion with unscrupulous officials of the food department.

A genuine farmer feels discouraged when he is not issued gunny bags to enable him to bring his grain to the food procurement centres. He is hence forced to sell the crop to middlemen at much lesser rate and the latter then supply the same to the food department and earn windfall profits by pocketing the support price.

Published in Dawn, April 21st, 2019