ISLAMABAD, Oct 23: The government on Tuesday set current year’s wheat output target at 24 million tons and finally reduced last year’s production estimates by 260,000 tons to 23.3 million tons.

Minister for Food, Agriculture and Livestock (Minfal) Sikandar Hayat Khan Bosan told a news briefing after presiding over a meeting of the Federal Committee on Agriculture (FCA) that cotton production during the recently concluded Kharif season had been estimated at 12.8 million bales, staying 1.2 million bales short of 14 million bales target fixed last year.

He, however, hastened to add that it was the first estimate for cotton crop and would be subject to change until February next year. The figures for all the crops have been provided by the provincial governments, he said.

Responding to a question as to why the government until last week has been claiming 23.56 million tons of wheat output since July this year, the minister said some people had been projecting even 24 million tons of wheat production but the final output has emerged to be 23.3 million tons. Responding to a question Secretary Agriculture Zia-ur-Rehman said the revised wheat production estimate “would have a fractional impact, if at all” on growth numbers of the Gross Domestic Product that the government has been putting at seven per cent.

The government has been claiming economic growth rate of seven per cent during 2006-07 on the basis of 23.56 million tons of wheat production and allowed 500,000 tons of wheat export on the basis of such a surplus - that it had claim - was also augmented by about 400,000 tons of previous year’s carry forward.

Mr Bosan said the government had allowed only 385,000 tons of old stocks to provide better rates to the farmers. He said the shortage primarily emerged due to increased production and argued that consumption in the poultry feed sector increased to about 500,000 tons compared with just 50,000 tons, previously.

Higher output next year despite water shortfall would be achieved through cultivation of 8.578 million hectares, timely sowing and sufficient supplies of fertiliser and pesticides.

The minister said the shortfall in cotton production was partially because of the damage caused to about 100,000 bales of the crop in Balochistan due to heavy rains and an equivalent loss due to switchover to sugarcane by farmers in Dera Ismail Khan area.

He said that the target for provision of agricultural credit for the year has been set at Rs200 billion, about 18 per cent higher than last year’s disbursements of Rs169 billion.

Pakistan will have record sugarcane production of about 62.3 million tons during the current season, up by about 13.5 million tons last year that in itself had highest ever sugarcane produce. The minister said the increase in production was both on account of increase in area under sugarcane cultivation and improvement in per acre yield.

This, however, puts into question government’s national water policy that calls for increasing water efficient crops with higher overall agricultural yields like cotton and reducing crops that required higher water quantities.

The minister said the rice production in 2007-08 has been estimated at 5.5 million tons compared to 5.4 million tons last year. He said the government was expecting much higher rice crop this year but the output would suffer a shortfall of about 300,000 tons due to floods in Sindh’s Dadu and Qambar Ali Shahzad districts and pest attack in Jaffarabad and Nasirabad districts of Balochistan, besides some pockets in Punjab.

Mr Bosan said the target for gram production for the coming crop had been put at 761,000 tons against a much higher production of 848,300 tons of last year because of lower than normal rain forecast by the meteorological department. He, however, said it would still be much higher than domestic consumption requirement of about 600,000 tons.

Potato production, too, would be lower by 13 per cent this season to 2.15 million tons against 2.47 million tons last year. Onion production has been estimated to increase slightly by 5.5 per cent to 1.864 million tons compared with 1.761 million tons earlier.The minister said the objective would be to make agriculture sector profitable and competitive globally with a focus on high value crops and higher value addition.

The minister said that the fertiliser availability for Rabi season had been estimated at 2.8 million tons against a requirement of 2.4 million tons but the government had already asked the Trading Corporation of Pakistan to import 150,000 tons of urea as soon as possible to meet sudden and increased demand in the month of December.