ISLAMABAD, Oct 30: On the eve of the Economic Coordination Committee (ECC)’s meeting being held on Wednesday to fix wheat support prices, the National Assembly Standing Committee on Agriculture has approached Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz and warned him of leaving poorer farmers and a cycling food crisis in legacy if lessons are not learnt from India.
A worst wheat crisis is feared to embrace the new political setup in its early days if the ECC fails to fix “logical and just” prices for the procurement of wheat this season and announce “unprecedented” subsidies on inputs particularly fertilisers and seeds to make the reluctant farmers sow the major crop.
This year, the farmers are prone to cultivating maize and sunflower for better pay back, after they were “looted” by vested interests last season. The farmers were made to sell their wheat in panic following the propaganda of bumper crop production and fear of further decline in prices.
However, a solution to this problem still lies in learning a lesson from the wheat crisis India faced over the last five years that converted the South Asian green tiger from a wheat exporter to a wheat importer in the last two years, observed the committee in a vital meeting held in the Parliament House here on Tuesday.
In a move that is aimed at achieving self-sufficiency, the Indian government has fixed wheat procurement prices at Rs620 per 40kg compared to Rs425 fixed by Pakistan last year and around Rs500 the federal food ministry has proposed to the ECC to be considered for the new crop.
The Indian government has increased by Rs100 the wheat support prices this year, a major shift in the policy it followed for half a decade and that failed to deliver.
Their Pakistani counterparts can only dream of what the Indian farmers get from their government in support. The price of DAP fertilisers in India is below Rs700 per bag, while in Pakistan its price has touched Rs1,400 this season compared to Rs1,000 last year.
Besides drawing numerous subsidies on herbicides and electricity, 80 per cent of the wheat seed sown on the Indian soil are certified compared to a meagre below 20 per cent in Pakistan.
The today of the Indian farmers is the ideal of their Pakistani counterparts, observed the committee’s members.
“We should learn from our neighbours,” Makhdum Syed Ahmed Alam Anwar, the committee’s chairman, said.
PROPOSAL: The committee proposed to the ECC to fix this year’s wheat support prices between Rs500-600. It said the government will have to provide Rs14bn extra subsidy on DAP this year to bring down the per bag prices from Rs1,400 to Rs1,000.
“We are going to fax these recommendations to the prime minister now before it is too late,” the chairman observed.
The committee has requested the prime minister to allow a few of its members including its chairman to attend the Wednesday’s ECC meeting to fight the case of the farmers at a forum where farmers have no physical presence.
“I think if Minfal (Ministry of Food, Agriculture and Livestock) can’t advocate for the farmers efficiently even if it wants,” MNA Ishaq Khan Khakwani observed. He criticised Minfal and particularly the myopic government policies for failing to deliver anything substantial since independence.
The committee warned that if the present setup fails to make bold decisions, the new government will not be able to get out of the quagmire of food insecurity.
INPUT COST: Officials of Minfal briefed the committee about the input cost for wheat this year, which the committee calculated to be around Rs7,000-8,000 per acre. The estimated yield per acre is 972-kg. This cost does not include the water charges and labour cost. In India, the input cost is almost half compared to Pakistan.
The overall input cost which the wheat growers will bear this year is around Rs50bn. And, if they use two bags of DAP per acre (which is the best option) instead of one the cost could go up to Rs72-75bn.
The meeting also criticised the government’s move to export half a million tons of wheat soon after the harvest at $220 per ton and announced after a month import of one million tons of wheat at double rate of $450 per ton. The government will pay Rs25bn for the import.
“This money will go to the pockets of the rich Australian farmers. Why can’t we pay this money to our farmers and increase what support prices,” the chairman observed.