The Sindh Chamber of Agriculture (SCA), a farmers' lobbying group, has demanded just distribution of imported fertilizer in all districts of Sindh as per the authorized rates.Chairing a meeting of the chamber here on Monday its President Syed Meeran Muhammad Shah also sought action against the black marketing of fertilizer which had resulted in inflated prices.
According to him, the price of a urea bag was Rs3,600 but it was being sold at between Rs6,500 to Rs7,000 per bag at a price which the small farmers could not afford.
He maintained that the wheat crop required one more dose of fertilizer which required immediate start of the sale of imported wheat at the authorized rates in all districts of Sindh.
Shah urged the caretaker Sindh Chief Minister justice (retd) Maqbool Baqar to ensure that the imported fertiliser was made available to farmers in the province.The Chamber's President recalled that in 2023 the Sindh Government had fixed the wheat procurement rate at Rs4,000 per 40 kilogram.
However, the cost of cultivation had enhanced by around 40 per cent in 2023-24 and that necessitated that the procurement price should be increased to Rs5,000 per 40 kg, he added.Zahid Hussain Bhurgari, Nabi Bux Sathio, Khadim Hussain Bahrani, Haji Nisar Memon, Bilal Khan Laghari and Murad Ali Nizamani, among others, attended the meeting.
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A large number of growers participated in the meeting while the resident leaders from many districts participated in the meeting through video link.
In the meeting, the growers said that District Agriculture Advisory Committees are being formed all over Sindh on the orders of the Chief Secretary while they have been formed in some other districts. They demand that District Agriculture Advisory Boards be formed in all districts immediately and imported urea fertilizer should be provided through these committees.
For this purpose, a committee should be formed under the chairmanship of the Director General of Agriculture and the Deputy Director of Agriculture so that the imported urea fertilizer can be distributed fairly and there is no corruption in it. It was said in the meeting that the Sindh govt had fixed the support price of wheat at Rs4,000 per 40kg last year.
Published in The Express Tribune, January 16th, 2024.
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