MULTAN, Jan 30: Wheat growers are foreseeing a gloomy scenario in the harvest season this year when they expect to find it difficult to sell their product owing to the ‘liberalized’ import of the commodity and unsold official stocks.

According to sources in food wing of the federal agriculture ministry, around one million tons of wheat had been imported from Russia, Australia and America and yet the authorities had no intention to stop it even when domestic harvest season was round the corner.

It may be mentioned here that wheat from the fresh crop starts arriving from the fields to the lower Sindh market of Jhado by February 15.

On the other hand, the sources say the government has a carryover stock of as much as 3.5m tons of wheat from its procurements made last year. The three official wheat procurement agencies had collectively procured 3.93m tons of wheat in 2005. The agency-wise break-up showed that PASSCO procured 0.997m tons, Punjab Food Department 2.448m tons and Sindh Food Department 0.505m tons.

The government wheat stocks are mainly consumed by the flour mills running in the private sector. But, this time the flour millers have mainly grinded wheat from their own stocks and consequently the official stocks are lying in the godowns. Last year, the official carryover wheat stocks from the previous crop on May 1, 2005 were just 0.5m tons.

According to the official estimates, the flour mills collectively grind some 600,000 tons of wheat per month. Hence, after excluding the wheat harvest months of April and May, the quantity of wheat grinded by the millers in eight months from June 2005 to January 2006 should not be less than 4.8m tons.

This means that the private sector has had at least around 4.5m tons of wheat in its stocks procured directly from the open market. This raises a valid question that how did the profit-oriented private sector manage to procure more wheat than the official agencies while the Minfal high-ups have always talked about a huge annual bill from the national exchequer on account of subsidized official wheat procurement?

The wheat production target this year is 22m tons while the national output projected by the Minfal last year was 21.6m tons. The agriculturists are, however, expecting a crop size more than the targeted owing to better weather and crop conditions and an increase of around 3 per cent in the area under wheat as compared to the last year.

In a backdrop painted with 3.5m official carryover stocks, 1m tons of imported cheap-in-quality-and-price wheat and a crop size surpassing the target, the worries of the growers are not out of place that they may not get the fair price this year. Sources said that the highest ever wheat stocks maintained by the government in the country’s history were 6m tons (in the year 2000) as otherwise the official procurement/stock has hardly touch the figure of 4m tons of wheat. It may be added here that the official roofed godowns can stock only 2m tons of wheat.

The specifications of wheat to be imported had reportedly been revised by the Minfal on the recommendations of Trading Corporation of Pakistan, which had been dealing wheat import prior to its liberalization last year. Analysts say that it is ironical that under the ‘market-friendly’ policy of the government the free import of wheat is allowed but there is no permission to export the commodity.