KARACHI: Sindh Minister for Agriculture Sardar Mohammad Bux Mahar on Friday announced the launch of ‘Wheat Growers Support Policy’ terming it ‘a historic’ initiative aimed at providing immediate relief to wheat farmers.

He said that due to certain IMF conditions, farmers cultivating wheat, rice and sugar cane had stopped receiving support price of these commodities. However, despite challenging circumstances, the Sindh government has now decided to assist farmers, he added.

Giving details of the scheme, the minister said that in order to facilitate farmers’ registration, monitoring and supervision, committees have been established at the provincial, district and local levels. The registration process will be initiated using the Benazir Hari Card database, National Identity Cards and land revenue records. All field assistant officers of agriculture department have been instruc­ted to complete the registration process within a month.

Sardar Mahar said that a provincial-level monitoring committee has been formed under the director general of the agriculture department.

Farmers will get Rs24,700 per acre, DAP and urea bags; minister says aim is to neutralise effects of IMF conditions regarding subsidies and support prices of wheat, rice and sugar cane

He said that under the Wheat Growers Package, around 411,000 farmers owning between one and 25 acres of land will be provided fertiliser and urea.

He said wheat will be cultivated on 2.262 million acres across Sindh, and under the Wheat Cultivation Programme, each farmer will receive Rs24,700 per acre. The Sindh government will allocate a total of Rs58 billion for this initiative.

The minister added that after verification, the distribution of DAP fertiliser will be completed by November this year while the remaining two bags of urea will be provided to each verified farmer after Jan 20, 2026 upon confirmation of cultivation.

He announced that agriculture officers’ leaves have been cancelled for the next 90 days, and the department’s offices will remain open on Saturdays to ensure smooth implementation of the programme.

“Sindh is the only province that had consistently been providing subsidies to farmers during difficult times,” Sardar Mahar pointed out, and said that the new measures are being taken under the special directives of PPP Chairman Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari to provide immediate relief to Sindh’s farmers.

The minister advised farmers across Sindh to register themselves with the agriculture department as soon as possible to fully benefit from this policy.

Published in Dawn, September 27th, 2025