KARACHI, Oct 11: The government has put off the Oct 17 scheduled meeting of the federal committee on agriculture till the first week of November to hold a full dress review of kharif crops and set targets for rabi crops, officials informed on Thursday.

The FCA is a top agricultural body in which representations are drawn from the highest level of federal and provincial government agencies that take stock of situation in terms of availability of water, seeds, fertiliser, bank credit and all factors before setting area-wise production targets of all the big and small crops.

Officials doubt the holding of FCA meeting even in the first week of November.

“The FCA meeting will be held after the federal and provincial ministers of food and agriculture are sent home and replaced by some caretakers,’’ a knowledgeable government servant said who claimed that the federal food minister and his deputy and provincial food ministers want to escape responsibility and would prefer “caretakers’’ to give assessment of kharif and rabi crops.

In the forthcoming meeting, the FCA was expected to review the harvest of wheat in the wake of countrywide reports of wheat and wheat flour shortages.

The federal agricultural ministry estimated a harvest of 23.35 million tons of wheat this spring which is being seriously contested by many farm leaders who claimed that the officials and the federal agricultural minister were deliberately giving inflated production figures to falsely push up GDP figures.

On the other hand, various government functionaries, from food minister to special secretary in finance, have blamed speculators, hoarders and profiteers for stocking three to four million tons of wheat for illegal export to Afghanistan and beyond and also to regulate supply within Pakistan.

The FCA was expected to come out with a firm wheat harvesting figures in its meeting. Obviously, the ministry has not been able to firm up wheat production figures.

The riddle of flour shortages and a price rise in the market, now Rs20 a kg for consumers when according to a government record bumper harvest was made, remains unresolved.

“The government has apparently no answer about wheat crop size and allied matters and hence delay in the meting,’’ explained an official in the government.

The FCA was also expected to review reports appearing in the media on two main kharif crops -- rice and cotton.

Media reports substantial damage to rice and cotton from bugs, virus and other afflictions which may cause a substantial loss to national economy.

There are reports of massive inflow of spurious and un-registered seeds of various crops in Pakistan because of ineffectiveness of the federal agricultural ministry which is hurting national agriculture.

“The FCA meeting will eventually become a forum of trading blames between the federal and provincial government representatives,’’ said an official.

The FCA has a very long agenda set for it. It also proposes a target for next crops.

Officials say the federal agricultural ministry was planning a target of 26 million tons for next wheat crop at a procurement price of Rs500 for 40 kg, up from Rs425 million fixed in the current fiscal.

But the finance ministry is opposed to it as its special secretary

Dr Ashfaq in a press briefing a few weeks ago in Karachi had stated that increase in procurement price does not bring prosperity to farmers. He said that it was increase in per acre yield that helps farmers to get a good price. Increase in procurement price every year brings undue pressure on consumers who have to pay more.But a debate is going on in the business circles that artificially low price fixed on wheat in Pakistan has led to a mass scale smuggling of wheat to India, Afghanistan and other countries.

“Therefore, fiscal solution is to make smuggling unviable is by increasing local price and help urban consumers by some other ways.”

One convenient way of way escaping from heat of all this debate and controversy is to put off FCA meeting and then wait for some replacement by caretakers which is now due. But all these issues are bound to find a prominent place at the time of elections and may impact on election results.