HYDERABAD, Dec 29: The Sindh Abadgar Board has appealed to the prime minister to personally ensure water supply to every channel of the Kotri Barrage in January and February to save the sunflower crop in the province.

In a communication sent to the prime minister on Wednesday, SAB president Abdul Majeed Nizamani said that sunflower had been cultivated in the southern part of Sindh, Thatta, Badin and Hyderabad districts, which are supplied water from the barrage.

He said that due to an acute shortage of water, the districts which used to be called sugarcane estates could not grow the crop and had shifted to sunflower on a large scale and the crop had been grown on hundreds of thousands of acres of land during the current Rabi season.

Appealing for personal intervention of the prime minister in the matter, he said that two water supplies in January and February be ensured to get proper yield of the crop.

He further said that the price of sunflower was very low and feared that if proper price was not paid to growers, they would be ruined and the target of making the country self-sufficient in edible oil would remain a dream.

Mr Nizamani pointed out that present price of sunflower was about Rs600 per 40kgs against last year's rate of Rs700 per 50kgs when it was sold in the open market at the rate of Rs825 per 40kgs.

He said that the importers lobby had become active and was behind reduction in the sunflower price. He appealed to the prime minister to direct the Association of Solvent Plants to immediately announce purchase price of the crop which should be more than last year's price. The farmers' leader further said that the government should impose additional import duty on palm oil to prevent its dumping.