‘Agricultural emergency should be declared to deal with food crises’

LAHORE: Pakistan Kissan Ittehad on Wednesday demanded of the government to declare agriculture emergency to deal with the prevalent food crisis in the country.

“It is pity that farmers are forced to run from pillar to post to get urea fertiliser on exorbitant rate of Rs3,000/bag and similar is with the case of common man who is facing humiliation in his bid to get a loaf for his family.” Khalid Khokhar, President PKI told a news conference. “In this grim situation, government should declare agriculture emergency mainly to save standing wheat crop.”

Khokhar said the country will have to import wheat in 2023 because of non-favourable government policies.

“It is unfortunate that Pakistan will support farmers of other countries and buy wheat from them at high prices instead of encouraging wheat growing in the country,” he said and adding government needs to act fast to increase wheat production.

Shortage of Urea will also impact Pakistan’s exports due to lack of enough raw materials for Cotton, Rice and Maize crops.

Khokhar said a wheat support price was announced by Sindh at Rs4,000/maund, but no price was announced in Punjab and KPK.

“Farmers did not maximise sowing area under wheat since they did not know the support price and Punjab government must immediately announce Rs4,000 per maund as wheat support price to stop smuggling of wheat,” he added.

Khokhar said wheat crop sown in November is now looking weak due to lack of fertilizer input. “Wheat yield per acre will be very low this year, also, the government did not announce a wheat support price in 2022 to ensure wheat is sown on a large area.”

DAP, the other main nutrient, has also been available at as high as Rs14,000 during November 2022 at the time of wheat sowing versus Rs6,000 in previous Rabi. “This reduced DAP application on wheat by farmers. The government did not support farmers through subsidy on DAP fertilizer,” he lamented.

Khokhar said the government has shut down two urea factories in January.

“This is the time for urea application on wheat. With severe shortage of urea today, wheat crop will suffer further,” he said.

Urea is being black marketed at Rs3,000 per bag versus MRP of Rs2,440. Also, it is not available for farmers. Khokhar said the government must immediately re-start all urea factories to ensure supply of urea for wheat crop.

Strongly condemning government’s proposal to impose GST on DAP, he said, the move will be a disaster for wheat and all other crops.

“Like all other agricultural countries including our neighbor, the government must subsidize DAP fertilizer with direct subsidy paid to farmers. Instead of imposing GST on DAP fertilizer.”