LAHORE: Private seed companies complain that like the last year they are being barred from procuring ‘certified wheat seed,’ a measure that may damage sowing of the crop in the next season as grain procurement campaign enters its second week in Punjab.

Private seed companies produce 88pc of the total certified wheat seed in the country.

In a letter written to Prime Minister Imran Khan, a copy available with Dawn, the Seed Association of Pakistan (SAP) alleges that the food department and district administrations are barring its member companies from procuring wheat from the fields inspected and cleared by the Federal Seed Certification & Research Department (FSC&RD) for seed purposes.

The vehicles carrying the procured wheat seed are also being impounded at various inter-district check-posts during shifting of the consignment from the fields to seed storages, reads the letter written by SAP president Chaudhry Asif Ali on Wednesday.

It argues that the food and district administration officials are also not qualified enough to differentiate between ‘grain’ and ‘seed’ and pleads that their step is in violation of a federal law as well as a verdict of the Lahore High Court (LHC), which declares the FSC&RD as the sole regulator for ‘seed’ and restrains provincial authorities from interference in the ‘seed’ procurement.

SAP says that in the fifth Punjab Agriculture Committee meeting held on April 2 it was assured that the seed companies with valid field inspection reports would not face any hindrance from the food department in seed procurement.

The assurance was reiterated by the Punjab food director in a meeting with a SAP delegation on April 8 but district food controllers, with the support of officials of district administrations, are blocking the movement of the ‘certified wheat seed’, the letter regrets, requesting the prime minister to intervene; otherwise, wheat sowing for the next season may be affected.

A senior food department official says they have imposed no restriction on buying and movement of wheat anywhere in the province keeping in view the last year’s experience. Last year, when it had excluded the private sector from the grain procurement drive only to be forced to earlier release wheat to flour mills from its storages (in July instead of October). He admits that inspection and monitoring by various agencies gets intensified and stricter during the procurement season and they allow movement of wheat after their satisfaction.

Published in Dawn, April 23rd, 2021