ISLAMABAD, March 8: The country is expected to harvest a bumper wheat crop of 20.7 million tons this year, one million tons more than last year’s 19.7 million tons, federal Food and Agriculture Minister Sardar Yar Mohammad Rind said on Saturday.
He told a news conference after presiding over a meeting of the Federal Committee on Agriculture (FCA) that surplus wheat would be exported with the collaboration of the private sector.
The minister said a comprehensive relief package had been prepared for the farming community as directed by the federal cabinet and sent to Prime Minister Zafarullah Khan Jamali for approval and implementation.
The package recommends a lowering of fertilizer prices and tariffs on agricultural inputs such as urea and provision of maximum soft-term loans to farmers, he said.
The FCA meeting was attended by representatives from all the four provinces to give their input.
Mr Rind said wheat support price had not been increased this year to save consumers from possible increases in wheat flour price.
But he said the government had taken measures to ensure that farmers received the fixed support price for their produce. For this purpose, the provincial governments of the Punjab and Sindh and PASSCO had been asked to ensure timely procurement of wheat according to the set targets.
The minister said recent heavy rains across the country and heavy snowfall on mountains had made a very positive effect on water availability with 0.25 million acre feet of additional water stored in the Tarbela Dam and 1.1 million acre feet additional water in the Mangla Dam.
Water flow in the river Sindh had reached 50,000 cusecs from only 20,000 cusecs in the year-ago period, he said.
He said sufficient irrigation water would be available for the next cotton crop while last year’s crop had suffered from a drought-like situation.
The minister said the cotton production target for this season had been set at 10.55 million bales, far short of the target last year, due to the previous water scarcity.
Sugarcane target was set at 48 million tons, rice at 4.3 million tons, maize at 1.7 million tons, potato at 1.8 million tons, and onion at 1.6 million tons.
He said gram production, which was 0.362 million tons last year, was estimated at 0.470 million tons this year. Surpluses of 0.4 million tons of potato and 0.3 million tons of onion after meeting domestic requirements would be disposed of. Mr Rind said it had been decided that the National Seed Council would ensure timely provision of good quality seeds to farmers.
He said that under instructions from the prime minister, his ministry ensure policy planning for every crop at least two months before the start of the crop season.