Wheat output to allow exports: Farmers

Food Ministry official says output might be near target, traders see 2 million tonnes in exportable surplus.

ISLAMABAD: Pakistan's wheat harvest from the 2010-11 crop is expected to be as much as 23.5 million tonnes, short of the targeted 25 million but still leaving enough surplus for exports, industry officials said on Tuesday,

A decline in the area under wheat cultivation, low water supplies in rain-fed regions and fertiliser shortages will probably contribute to lower output, said Ibrahim Mughal, chairman of Agri Forum Pakistan, a farmers' association.

"Because of these reasons, we are not looking at more than 23.5 million tonnes of wheat output this year," said Mughal.

Pakistan consumes about 22 million tonnes a year, and harvesting of the new crop will begin in April.

Mughal said the situation may improve slightly if water and fertiliser availability improves.

Farmers have sown wheat over an area of little over 8.5 million hectares this year, down from 9.13 million last year when the country produced a bumper crop of about 23.8 million tonnes of wheat, Mughal said.

Farmers' sowing estimates differ slightly from the official statistics, which showed wheat sown on 8.79 million hectares by late December, against the government target of 9.04 million.

Officials of the Food Ministry, which compiles the wheat data, said they expected a good crop after summer floods, which devastated large farmlands but also increased fertility in wheat-growing areas.

The exact crop estimates will likely be available by March, but one Food Ministry official suggested the output might be close to the target on better recovery.

Industry officials, however, disagreed.

"Given the area under cultivation this year, we expect the output to be about 23 million tonnes," Asim Raza, chairman of the Pakistan Flour Mills Association, told Reuters.

Despite the lower-than-targeted output, Pakistan, Asia's third-largest wheat producer, will have at least 2 million tonnes of exportable surplus, traders said.

Pakistan in August deferred earlier plans to export 2 million tonnes of surplus wheat after summer floods washed away at least 725,000 tonnes of the grain.

But it resumed wheat exports this month for the first time in three years after the government lifted a ban in December, when the bumper crop plus 4.2 million tonnes in carryover stocks led to a market surplus.

Official wheat stocks stood at 7.5 million tonnes on Monday.

Pakistan has sold 200,000-500,000 tonnes of wheat mainly to Bangladesh and Myanmar, and international traders are taking positions for more deals after Islamabad lifted the ban, traders said last week.