HYDERABAD, Feb 26: Wheat growers have expressed disappointment over the wheat procurement price of Rs510 per 40 kg fixed by the government and expressed apprehensions that wheat might be smuggled to neighbouring countries if incentives were not offered to growers.

Sindh Abadgar Board president Abdul Majeed Nizamani said the procurement price should have been between Rs700 and Rs800 per 40 kg in view of the fact that phosphate fertiliser (DAP) was available at Rs2,500 per bag.

He said: “Wheat production can be increased by over 50 million maunds if an attractive procurement price is announced because there is still time to give some inputs to the standing crop. Wheat is cultivated on around 17 million acres of land.”

He said wheat had not been cultivated on around five lakh acres due to the late harvesting of sugarcane and according to Sindh secretary agriculture’s figures, wheat was sown on 20 per cent less land than the fixed target, and according to the Ministry of Food, Agriculture and Livestock, the sowing was 15 per cent less.

SAB general secretary Mahmood Nawaz Shah said that imported wheat cost Rs1,050 per 40 kg and the government should have fixed the price at around Rs650 per 40kg.