'Wheat import imminent to meet output shortfall'

Minister says K-P, PASSCO fail to achieve procurement targets

ISLAMABAD: The National Assembly was informed on Saturday that the country would need import of wheat to meet its domestic demand as the crop production this fell by 1 to 1.5 million tonnes, while the relevant authorities failed to achieve the overall procurement target.

Speaking on the opposition cut motions regarding food security ministry in the National Assembly, Food Minister Syed Fakhar Imam said that Pakistan was 90-95% secure in terms of food security despite the twin challenges of coronavirus pandemic and locust attacks.

“We will have to import wheat this year. This year, the wheat production is 1 to 1.5 million tonnes less than our domestic consumption,” the minister told the lawmakers. He added that the import of wheat would start in eight weeks. “Our ministry has already invited applications for wheat import.”

On the wheat procurement target, the minister told the house that Punjab, Sindh and Balochistan had achieved their targets but Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Pakistan Agricultural Storage and Services Corporation (Passco) failed to meet their targets.

Imam said that the whole world was moving towards high-value targets in terms of crop production but unfortunately, “we’ve been moving towards the low-value crops for the last 70 years. He added that 80% of the cultivable area in the country produces five crops, including wheat, cotton and maize.

He said that the biggest challenge for Pakistan “right now is the coronavirus and locust attack”, adding that the government had taken several steps to control the locust. “The government has allocated Rs25 billion to deal with locust. We have rented 11 planes [for aerial spray],” he added.

The minister informed the house that Punjab had 5.4 million farmers out of which about 3.5 million were registered. We will give relief to the farmers,” he added. He also stressed the need for upgrading that standard of the country’s universities. “We need to pay special attention to our research centres.”

Earlier, National Assembly Member Rao Ajmal said that agriculture was the lifeline of the country and urged the government to fix the support price for potatoes, rice and maize. The support price of wheat should be increased from Rs1,400 to Rs1,600,” he said.

Chaudhry Mohammad Ashraf called for establishing a system to deal with the issue facing the agriculture sector. Maulana Abdul Shakoor said that Pakistan was an agricultural country and “we have to work together for the betterment of agriculture.”

Ayesha Ghous Pasha said that if agriculture was not given due consideration, the situation would get worse. Mahesh Malani demanded setting up of an agricultural university in Thar and providing agricultural loans to the farmers.