LAHORE: Punjab expects to achieve its wheat production target this season notwithstanding the negative impact of climate change.

“As far as the current crop situation is concerned, we’re all set to achieve the wheat output target of 20.62 million tonnes,” said a senior official of the Punjab Agriculture Department on Wednesday.

Though the province didn’t receive rains for two months — January and February — because of climate change, the situation is well under control for two reasons: the temperature remained lower retaining enough moisture for the growth of grain, and the area under the crop increased as compared with the last year, Punjab Crop Reporting Service Director Dr Abdul Qayyum told Dawn.

Unlike in the last year, he says, there have also been no reports of yellow rust attacks on the crop from anywhere in the province.

The Federal Committee on Agriculture (FCA) had in October last year set 27 million tonnes as the wheat production target for the 2020-21 season from an area of 9.2 million hectares.

According to the FCA working paper, Punjab would produce 19.66m tonnes, Sindh 3.8m tonnes, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa 2.57m tonnes and Balochistan one million tonnes.

Punjab had sown wheat at 16.67 million acres against the previous year’s 16.2 million acres, almost 500,000 acres more. Over 90 per cent of the crop had been sown in the early and the most suitable season.

The increase in acreage and rising attraction of wheat cultivation has been attributed to the failure of the last cotton crop. “Poor lint output due to pest attacks and other related reasons made the farmers free up their lands from cotton and use it instead for early wheat sowing in a bid to get a better yield,” said Director-General (Extension) Dr Anjum Ali Buttar while talking to Dawn.

Increase in minimum wheat support price by the federal government, from Rs1,400 to Rs1,650 and then to Rs1,800 per 40kg, when the sowing season had set in served as an added incentive to the growers to focus on the grain, he added.

The Punjab Food Department, however, has revised downward its wheat procurement target and has decided to procure 3.5 million tonnes of grain against 4.5m tonnes of last year, though authorities hope they will reap 19.8m tonnes grain, more than the target fixed by the FCA.

The private sector will not be allowed to enter the market until the department achieves its procurement target, says a food official, dropping a hint that the crop may fall short of the target.

For meeting any eventuality like heavy rains or high temperature before harvesting which may shrivel the grain, the government has already allowed import of wheat both by the public and private sector, the official added.

Published in Dawn, March 11th, 2021