Government to purchase 6.5m tons of wheat this year

ECC committee to review wheat procurement policy sets support price for farmers at Rs950 per 40kg.

ISLAMABAD: Federal Minister for Food and Agriculture Nazar Muhammad Gondal has announced that the government will procure 6.5 million tons of wheat this season at the minimum support price of Rs950 per 40 kilogramme.

Gondal was presiding over a meeting of a committee constituted by the Economic Coordination Committee (ECC) to review the wheat procurement policy at the ministry on Thursday.

“There will be no ban on the export of wheat during the procurement period and the procurement target can be revised as we will be closely monitoring it,” he said.

The public sector will maintain strategic reserves of one million tons while Sindh and Punjab will have storage capacity of 1.3 million tons, he added.

The committee decided that Punjab will procure 3.5 million tons of wheat, Sindh 1.3 million tons, Pakistan Agriculture Storage and Supplies Corporation (Passco) 1.3 million tons, Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa 0.4 million tons and Balochistan 70,000 tons.

The meeting was told that wheat production is expected to be 23 million tons this year. Of that, Sindh is expected to produce 3.7 million tons while Punjab will have output of 16.5 million tons.

“We will ensure that the country continues to produce bumper crops in future also. We can turn around our economy if we keep on promoting the agriculture sector,” Gondal added.

Published in The Express Tribune, February 4^th, 2011.