HYDERABAD, June 4: The Sindh Chamber of Agriculture has demanded that the federal government should ban import of all agricultural items. At a meeting held here on Sunday, SCA leaders urged the government not to impose any import duty on agriculture machinery including tractors.

Syed Qamaruzzaman Shah presided over the meeting.

The meeting demanded that no export duty should be imposed on agriculture produce and all edible items should be exempted from payment of general sales tax.

It said that Sindh was receiving 50 per cent less water during the current fiscal year hence the water charges should be reduced by half.

The meeting called upon the government to provide agricultural machinery to growers at subsidised rates.

The meeting urged the government to fix minimum price of sugarcane at Rs60 per 40kg for the next year and ask sugar mills to start crushing from Nov 1.

At another meeting held here on Saturday, the SCA expressed concern over spiralling prices of agricultural inputs.

It said that the agriculture sector continued to face poor infrastructure, corruption and falling prices of agricultural products.

The meeting was told that Sindh would cultivate only 20 per cent cotton in May because of an acute water shortage in the province.

The meeting said that supply of water to the Kotri barrage delayed for one and a half month resulting into belated sowing of Kharif crops.

The meeting appealed to the authorities not to close water supply before Nov 15 to give sufficient time to paddy crop to mature.

The farmers feared severe pest attack on crops due to belated sowing and added that they would have very little time left for sowing wheat after harvesting paddy.

They said that paddy growers had suffered about Rs4 billion losses last year due to low prices of the produce.

The meeting urged irrigation and power departments to ensure availability of water till Nov 15 to save farmers from incurring further losses this year.

The meeting appealed to the government to allot a 50 per cent quota to farmers in the agriculture export processing zone which was being set up near the fruits and vegetable market on the Super Highway.