Wheat procurement drive gathers pace in Punjab as harvest exceeds expectations

LAHORE: The Punjab Food Department has accelerated its wheat procurement campaign in response to an unexpectedly bountiful harvest, having achieved a purchase milestone of almost one million within the initial week, official data showed on Tuesday.

According to official procurement data, the provincial food department purchased 9.520 million tonnes of wheat from farmers till April 17, 2023, which is 25.73 percent of procurement target for ongoing campaign under marketing year 2023-24. So far, gunny bags for purchase of 1.998 million tonnes have also been issued.

In the first week of wheat procurement drive from April 10 to April 17, the daily buying of wheat accelerated to 158,616 tonnes while gunny bags issuance reached to 195,632 tonnes. Such kind of advancement with regards to purchasing wheat is usually seen by end of second week of procurement in a typical procurement drive.

It may be noted that Punjab Food Department is purchasing wheat from growers at support price of Rs3,900 per maund. The market price varies between Rs3,700 to Rs3,800 in various districts. Till now, less than one-third of crop has been harvested in the province.

Apart from arrangements made by the provincial food department, one of the main reasons of robust grain sourcing has been bigger-than-anticipated output of wheat this season. According to a field survey report based on initial feedback of farmers, despite weather-related adversaries, wheat growers have been reaping a surprisingly high output in South Punjab, a major food basket, stoking prospects of plenteous produce on the provincial level if a similar trend continues in the central parts of the province as well.

Reports pouring in from South Punjab suggest well above-average wheat output, right from Rajanpur in the southwestern stretch to Bahawalnagar in the south-eastern belt. Many farmers are reporting yields of more than 50 maunds per acre, compared to the national average of 32 maunds. Such a turnaround in wheat projections shows how wheat plants miraculously withstood wet-weather-related damages to the crop, thanks to consistently cool temperatures and bright sunny days.

According to an estimate, provincial wheat output may jump by about 1.5 to two million tonnes if similar trend of high per acre yield is witnessed in the central parts of the province.

When contacted, a senior official, who is on the field tour of South Punjab, reaffirmed that, despite rains and hailstorms in the country during the current season, there were signs of major improvement in the wheat crop size. “Farmers are harvesting a very good crop of this year,” he blissfully said. The official said the provincial food department had taken all possible steps to buy each and every grain of farmers being brought to procurement centers. “We have raised wheat procurement target to 3.8 miilion tonnes from initial 3.5 million tonnes.”

He hinted that the department was open to buying even higher amount of wheat if intervention in market was needed to stablise wheat selling price.

As Punjab Food Department already achieved almost half of gunny bags issuance target (54.03 percent) and one-fourth of wheat purchase target (25.73 percent) with the first week of the drive--till April 17, 2023, there is likelihood of revising upward procurement target as per market situation.

The healthy wheat arrival situation is even starker in Bahawalpur Division. So far, the food department distributed 87.25 percent of targeted gunny bags while 58.21 percent of wheat procurement target has been achieved. Thus, the trend in a surplus region of wheat production may prompt authorities to continue buying of wheat in view of increasingly rising wheat crop size.