Arrangements finalised to procure 7.5MT of wheat

ISLAMABAD: The Ministry of National Food Security and Research in collaboration with the provincial food departments has finalised all arrangements to procure around 7.5 million tons of wheat on government fixed rates to facilitate the growers across the country.

Wheat harvesting has started in Mirpurkhas Division and the Sindh Food Department has also started procurement of grains from the farmers at government fixed rates of Rs1,300 per 40kg, a senior official of the Ministry of Food Security said on Wednesday.

Talking to APP, he said that earlier the Economic Coordination Committee (ECC) of the Cabinet had approved the procurement of 7.5 million tons of wheat during the current procurement campaign.

The procured commodity would help boost the domestic strategic reserves for food security, as well as to fulfill the domestic consumptions, besides exporting the commodity, he said.

He said Punjab has been given a task to procure 4.5 million tons of wheat during the current procurement campaign and Sindh would procure around 1.1 million tons.

Meanwhile, Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa would procure 0.35 million tons and Balochistan would procure 0.10 million tons of wheat during the recent campaign, he said.

The Pakistan Agriculture Storage and Services Corporation (Passco) would procure 0.1 million tons across the wheat growing areas of the country on officially fixed rates to facilitate the growers to sell their produces.

The official said that the crop outlook is good, as reported by the field formation, adding that the recent spell of rains might cause delay in crop harvesting for a couple of weeks due to more rains during the current month.

He also said that the wheat harvesting campaign in Punjab usually starts from the middle of April, but due to rains forecast it is expected to start by the first week of May.