Pakistan sets wheat production target at 27m tons

Agri-committee asks provinces to focus on oilseeds, pulses cultivation

ISLAMABAD: The Federal Committee on Agriculture (FCA) has set the wheat production target for Rabi 2019-20 season at 27 million tonnes from an area of 9.2 million hectares.

The committee also suggested that provinces should focus on oilseeds and pulses cultivation in order to reduce the import bill.

In a meeting chaired by Federal Minister for National Food Security and Research Sahibzada Mehboob Sultan on Thursday, the committee reviewed the performance of Kharif crops (2019-20) and the production plan for Rabi crops (2019-20). It also discussed the availability of agricultural inputs for Rabi crops.

The committee was informed that sugarcane production in 2019-20 was estimated at 64.77 million tonnes from an area of 1.06 million hectares while rice production for the year was estimated at 7.7 million tonnes from an area of 3.04 million hectares. The area and production are up 5.5% and 3.6% respectively from the target fixed by the previous FCA meeting.

Meanwhile, the Indus River System Authority (Irsa) Advisory Committee has anticipated a water shortfall of 15% for Rabi 2019-20. In the Rabi season, the provinces are allocated 31.44 million acre-feet (maf) of water.

Given the prevailing weather conditions, which were supportive, the shortage was manageable, it said. Irsa also highlighted the wastage of water in the country.

It told its members that the water storage capacity in 1976 was 15.7 maf against 13.7 maf at present. Officials said the economic cost of one million acre-feet of water in Pakistan was $0.5 billion. Thus, from 1976, the country lost a resource unutilised into the sea worth over $600 billion.

They pointed out that Pakistan had an annual GDP growth of over 6% from 1970 to 1990 mainly because of the major water reservoirs including Mangla and Tarbela.

If Pakistan wanted to develop economically, it must construct new reservoirs of about 20 maf, allowing 8.5 maf downstream Kotri to cater to environmental flows and also to check seawater intrusion in the Indus delta, it added.

The Meteorological Department said summer rains from July to September 2019 remained normal and well distributed all over the country. Due to the rainfall received in late September and early October, there is sufficient soil moisture for sowing Rabi crops.

By the end of August, the lending institutions had disbursed agri-loans of Rs163 billion, which was 12.1% of the annual target of Rs1.350 trillion. “Availability of urea and DAP fertilisers during Rabi 2019-20 seems comfortable,” the meeting was told.

The committee was also informed that the availability of food commodities in the country was satisfactory and Kharif crop production was better compared to previous years.

Published in The Express Tribune, October 11^th, 2019.

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