LAHORE: Taking a cue from the Indian farmers’ protest, the local farming community has threatened a tractor march on Islamabad on March 31 if the government continues to ignore their plight.

The Pakistan Kissan Ittehad, a representative body of smallholder farmers, threatened on Thursday that they would give a call for a tractor march on the federal capital on March 31 if their five demands are not accepted by then.

In a press release issued here, PKI President Khalid Mahmood Khokhar said as run-up to the march they were organising rallies at the district level. The first one had been organised in Pakpattan on Feb 16, the next is scheduled to be held in Vehari on Feb 23, and dates for other rallies in Multan, Okara, Khanewal, Jhang and other districts would be announced later.

He demanded the government fix cotton support price before the sowing season of the crop, announce subsidy on DAP and urea fertilisers, make operational the closed urea manufacturing factories or import the fertilizer for its timely supply to the growers, fix wheat support price at Rs2,000 per 40kg to make it uniform across the country, and cut farm tubewell power rates to Rs5.35 per unit.

He said the PKI had serious reservations on the policies of the incumbent

government as these were annihilating the growers and if continued these are set to collapse the agriculture sector. He regretted to point out that the Prime Minister’s Agriculture Emergency Package had been announced in March 2020 but the same could not be implemented even after a year. The package included relief on farm tubewells power bills within 30 days.

He lamented that except in Sindh province, their demand for Rs2,000 per 40kg wheat support price was not accepted otherwise grain would have been grown on every inch of the cultivable land.

He said shortage of urea during the wheat season had cost the sector Rs2 billion.

Published in Dawn, February 19th, 2021