HYDERABAD: The Sindh Chamber of Agriculture (SCA) has appealed to the caretaker prime minister to intervene in the ‘cartelisation’ of Sindh’s rice millers, who are denying a just price to paddy growers for their produce.

In a letter to the PM, SCA senior vice president Nabi Bux Sathio pointed out that last year Pakistan had exported 3.8m tonnes of rice and earned $2.28bn foreign exchange. Out of this 3.8m tonnes, 2.5m tonnes were a coarse variety of rice to which Sindh contributes about 85pc share. He said that exporters fetched $600 per tonne of coarse variety rice at the highest possible rate at the end of the export season.

He said that as per an analysis of world-wide demand of rice, the US Department of Agriculture indicated that Pakistani coarse variety rice would attract $700 per tonne in the international market. Looking at this analysis and increased input cost, Sindh growers are expecting the price of paddy between Rs4,500 and Rs5,000 per 40kg, he said.

Mr Sathio said that it was on record that a month ago, rice millers were procuring paddy at Rs4,500 to Rs4,700 per 40kg. “But due to the cartelisation of millers and a nexus between them and rice exporters, the rate of paddy plummeted to Rs3,200 to Rs3,000 per 40kg,” he complained.

According to him, on Oct 9, 2022, the exchange rate of US dollar in Pakistani rupee was Rs221 and paddy was being purchased at Rs2,800 to Rs3,000 per 40kg while today the exchange rate is Rs285 and the paddy price remains the same i.e. Rs3,000 per 40kg.

“This exploitative attitude of rice millers or exporters vindicates anti-farmer, anti-Pakistan attitude,” he remarked.

Mr Sathio maintained that out of 30 districts of Sindh excluding seven districts of Karachi, paddy was sown in 10 districts which are called ‘one-crop zone’ owing to scarcity of irrigation water. These 10 districts were supplied irrigation water only for four to five months for paddy cultivation as paddy crop appears to be the only source of livelihood of a majority of people of these districts.

He said that one could easily imagine if farmers were deprived of a reasonable price of commodity, it would aggravate poverty ratio in the interior of Sindh.

He said that it was on record that during last year’s heavy rains, Sindh’s agriculture sector suffered huge losses.

Looking at these facts, he said, farmers of Sindh hope that timely instructions would be issued to the officers concerned for interventions to safeguarding due rights of farmers and growers would be saved from “exploitative rather evil designs of millers and exporters”, who not only get loan at concessional margin but also rebate amounting to billions of rupees at the cost of agro-economy of Sindh.

Published in Dawn, October 11th, 2023