LAHORE: The government is weighing withdrawing GST (General Sales Tax) on farm inputs and is also likely to raise wheat support price to Rs2,200/40kg for 2022-23 season, to implement one-price system across the country.
Sindh had already fixed the wheat support price at Rs2,200/40kg in November 2021.
A consensus to this effect was reached during a meeting in Islamabad where representatives of center, provinces, and farmers shared their misgivings regarding high cost of production, fertilisers price fluctuations and their non-availability, inflated tube well power bills, and hurdles in way of precision agriculture.
The meeting, chaired by Syed Fakhar Iman, Minister National Food Security and Research, was attended by about 40 participants hailing from all provinces.
The participants were unanimous that GST on certified seeds and agriculture implements should be withdrawn as it would have a long-lasting negative effect on the government’s drive to popularise the use of the same.
“It will discourage the use of certified seed and dent output, besides increasing cost of production; hence, the government is urged to remove GST on seeds of vegetables, hybrid rice, hybrid maize, canola, sunflower, fodders, and seed-cotton,” the growers observed.
Regarding support price of wheat for the 2022-23 procurement season, the farmers said escalating input prices especially of fertilisers, electricity, and diesel had tremendously added to the cost of this staple grain’s production.
The landed price of imported wheat had swelled to record high, thus the government should increase the support price to Rs2,200/40kg from Rs1,950, the farmers said.
The News has learnt the federal government has in principal decided to raise support price, taking into account a big jump in the cost of farm inputs.
If the government formally announced an upward revision in the wheat support price, it would be a departure from an earlier announcement made in the first week of November 2021.
According to that decision, the federal government had set the minimum support price (MSP) of what at Rs1,950/40kg for 2021-22 crop.
Farmers’ representatives, including office bearers of Pakistan Kissan Ittehad (PKI) and Kissan Board Pakistan (KBP), raised alarms over huge electricity bills weighing on the cost of production.
“It is high time to take steps to curb the menace of inflated power bills slapped on farmers,” they said and demanded that agriculture tube wells should be charged as “one-unit one-rate”.
Besides, Fuel Price Adjustment (FPA) must be abolished from the electricity bills of agriculture tube wells, they stressed.
About fertiliser profiteering and non-availability, the growers termed the situation as pathetic, saying urea fertiliser was not available anywhere in the country at official price.
They feared low use of fertiliser would negatively reflect on the productivity of wheat.
“Keeping the current situation in view, it is suggested that the government increase its inventory of urea and make a gas policy for at least 10 years for fertiliser industry so that it can maintain production according to the demand.”
They also demanded the rates of other fertilisers, including Phosphatic ones, be brought to 2019 level as had been done in India.
Slamming the imposition of GST on animal feed/ingredients, the farmers said it would render the livestock farming as unprofitable.
“It is not fair to control the price of milk and meat without considering the price and GST on animal feed and its ingredients,” they said.
The growers said it would be nearly impossible for the government to mechanise the agriculture productivity by increasing the cost of doing agriculture higher and higher.
According to the farmers’ representatives, with an addition of GST in the prices of farm machinery/implements, agriculture mechanisation will remain a dream for the government.
Having listened to all these arguments, the authorities assured farmers of resolving their issues, promising an accommodating decision in this connection would soon be announced, according to one of the participants.
However, he expressed serious reservations over the government’s handling of inflated power issue.
“It seems the government is not willing to reduce power tariff for agriculture tube wells, which is currently hovering around Rs30-40/unit,” the grower said.