HYDERABAD: The Sindh Chamber of Agriculture (SCA) urged the provincial government to announce the procurement rates of the four major crops - sugarcane, wheat, rice and cotton - by early August every year during a meeting on Sunday.
"Doing this will remove uncertainty among the farmers, who suffer at the hands of the mills and traders exploiting the belated announcement of the crop prices," said SCA president Dr Nadeem Qamar.
Farmers' representatives attended the meeting from Hyderabad, Karachi, Sukkur, Ghotki and Sanghar via video links. They regretted that despite having promised a rate of Rs3,200 per maund for cotton and Rs1,000 per maund for a particular variety of rice two months ago, the government had still not issued an official notification of the rates.
"The growers are consequently being forced to sell cotton at the much lower rate of Rs2,400 per maund, and rice at Rs900," said Qamar.
The SCA also pointed out that the provincial government had announced that the growers would be given solar tube wells in its budget for 2014-2015. However, they complained, the government had not yet taken any initiative in this regard.
The farmers requested the government to provide at least 10 solar tube wells in each of the 25 districts of Sindh during the ongoing fiscal year.
Published in The Express Tribune, September 22nd, 2014.
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