This year’s heavy floods have badly hurt our agriculture sector. In Punjab, rice, sugarcane and cotton crop under 1.3 million acres has been destroyed. In Bahawalnagar alone, almost 80 per cent of cotton fields are gone. Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa has also suffered, with about 3,200 acres of crops damaged.
Many farmers have lost not just their crops but also their stored stock. Out of 8.2 million farming families in Pakistan, nearly 90 per cent are small landholders. Their entire income from Kharif crops has been washed away by monsoon floods. In Punjab, small farmers owning around 12 to 16 acres are now struggling even to prepare their land for the next season.
To conclude, farmers urgently need government support to recover from this disaster. Financial aid, soft loans and help with seeds and fertilisers can make a big difference. Without such steps, many of them might not be able to grow their next crop, which will affect the country’s food supply too.
Berugh Gohram
Nizarabad, Tump
