ISLAMABAD, Nov 1 The government on Monday set a wheat output target at 25 million tons for the current Rabi season.

The Federal Committee on Agriculture (FCA) set the new target for wheat at a time when sowing was in full swing in the country.

Federal Minister for Food and Agriculture Nazar Muhammad Gondal, who chaired the FCA meeting, told a news conference that despite low production there will be no shortage of wheat or rice.

The country requires 23.5 million tons of wheat for domestic consumption, and more than 2 million tons will remain in reserves till the next wheat crop. The government has with it 700,000 tons of wheat, which is being used as seed for the Rabi crop, he said.

It is feared that the country may loss 2.4 million tons of rice production this year due to recent floods. The rice production estimates for the year 2010-11 were 5.95 million tons against the target of 6.18 million tons, while the country requires only 2.5 million tons for domestic consumption.

The provinces informed the committee that due to floods two million tons of coarse and fine varieties of rice may not be available and their production may fall to 4.2 million tons.

The provincial governments informed the committee that floods affected the sugarcane crop and its production may not match the target.

The latest cotton production estimates of 11 million bales showed that the target was missed by 3 million bales, while the domestic requirement of cotton is 15 million bales, which indicates that the government would have to import cotton this year to meet the shortfall.

The committee asked the cotton crop assessment body to finalise the first estimates in view of present arrivals.

The estimates of sugarcane production for 2010-11 were set at 54 million tons against the target of 53.69 million tons.

When his attention was drawn to the historic rising of sugar price in the market, Mr Gondal replied that the rise in price was absolutely unjust and blamed the mafia for the inflated price.

To counter the rising price of sugar, Mr Gondal advised the people to reduce the intake of sugar, which is quite high as compared to India and Bangladesh. However, he suggested that provinces should draw the mechanism to put a check on the sugar price.

The FCA also set production targets for potato, onion, gram and lentil. The target for potato was fixed at 2.94 million tons against the requirement of 1.7 million tons; onion at 1.82 million tons against1500,000 tons; gram at 619,000 tons against 600 tons and lentil at 14,000 tons against the requirement of 50 tons.