No food shortage in country: minister

Despite the floods, there is no fear of food shortage as strategic reserves are able to meet domestic requirements.

ISLAMABAD: Despite the floods, there is no fear of a national food or grain shortage as strategic reserves are more than enough to meet domestic requirements, according to the Federal Minister for Food and Agriculture Nazar Muhammad Gondal.

“Our strategic reserves of food commodities like wheat, rice, potato and pulses are sufficient to fulfill the domestic requirements till the arrival of the next crops as these reserves are kept to meet any challenging situation in the country,” he explained.

Some surplus exportable stock of food and grains is also available within the country, he added. “We are facing pressure to export these crops, but now we have decided to keep them as part of our strategic reserves”.

Furthermore, the government will provide technical assistance to growers in the form of land levelling machinery on subsidised rates. It will also implement a policy to provide them agricultural inputs like seeds and fertilisers on subsidised rates, he added.

However, the minister conceded that catastrophic floods in the country have damaged agricultural land and destroyed over thousands of acres of standing crops. It may be recalled that according to some initial estimates about 326,000 acres covered with sugarcane was destroyed in flood affected areas.

Rice crop standing worth of Rs212 billion was also destroyed in the four provinces.

Estimates also showed that about 2.04 million bales of cotton were damaged which cost the country Rs612 billion.

Published in The Express Tribune August 18^th, 2010.