Wheat production to stay slightly below target

Agriculture council meets for the first time in four years.

ISLAMABAD: Production of wheat, Pakistan’s main staple food, will stand below the target of 25.5 million tons this year, but will still be slightly above last year’s harvest and sufficient to meet domestic and Afghan refugee needs.

The fresh crop estimates were presented in a meeting of the Federal Agriculture Council that met here on Friday for the first time in four years.

Federal Minister for National Food Security and Research Sikandar Hayat Bosan chaired the sitting, which was attended by representatives of the four provinces, Gilgit-Baltistan and Azad Jammu and Kashmir.



The Federal Committee on Agriculture was disbanded after the subject of agriculture was devolved to provinces under the 18th Amendment to the Constitution.

After the meeting, Bosan met Finance Minister Ishaq Dar and told him that all the four provinces had confirmed that this year’s wheat crop would be over 25 million tons, according to the Ministry of Finance.

The government had set the target at 25.5 million tons against last year’s production of 24.3 million. While the manufacturing and services industries have shown signs of recovery, the agriculture sector is yet to show improvement.

For the current financial year, the government has set the economic growth target at 4.4% while the growth target for agriculture, which contributes about 22% to the total national output, is 4.3%.

Bosan told Dar that because of the good crop, the country was expected to have surplus wheat this year. The agriculture council met after a gap of four years with representatives of all the four provinces, Gilgit-Baltistan and Azad Jammu and Kashmir taking part, he said.

According to Bosan, the coming wheat crop is expected to be above the national target, a statement which seems contrary to the fact. According to the Annual Plan 2013-14, the wheat production target is 25.5 million tons.

The country will also miss the potato production target of four million tons. This year, potato output is expected to be over 2.7 million tons, according to the Ministry of Finance. It will also be 1.1 million tons less than last year’s crop.

According to the Annual Plan, the potato production had been 3.8 million tons last year.

Bosan said the country consumed 1.7 million tons of potato in a year and it would have a surplus of one million tons this season. Owing to recent rains, there was enough water for the upcoming Kharif sowing season, he added.

The finance minister suggested that the Ministry of National Food Security and Research must ensure that prices of potato were not increased in the domestic market as supply was more than the demand.

He stressed that the ministry should play a proactive role, in coordination with the provinces.

He also directed the Ministry of Food Security to ensure that sugarcane growers were paid by the sugar millers, who were allowed to export surplus commodity on the condition of settling claims of the growers.

Published in The Express Tribune, March 29^th, 2014.

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