Wheat crisis spurs govt to aim for record 33 million tonnes harvest in 2023-24

LAHORE: Pakistan is likely to set a highly ambitious wheat production target of above 33 million tonnes for the 2023-24 season, a senior official said on Monday, as the country seeks to ensure food security for its growing population.

The agriculture sector, which accounts for about a fifth of the country’s gross domestic product, has been struggling to meet the demand for wheat, a staple food for more than 240 million people.

The official said the primary focus was to boost productivity by enhancing per acre yield, rather than expanding the area under cultivation, which was constrained by water scarcity.

"The primary focus in this connection is to go for vertical growth by enhancing per acre yield. It will be departure from stereotype approach of maximizing area under cultivation, which is simply not possible due to dearth of water for irrigation purposes," the official added.

“A strong lobby within the agriculture establishment has been pushing for aspiring high in order to increase wheat production to meet burgeoning population of the country. . If such consideration prevails, there is strong likelihood that a very high target of wheat harvest is to be set.”

The major driving force behind setting exceptionally high wheat output goal has been said to be determined approach exhibited by the Punjab province, the major producer o the commodity. The province has been poised to go for enhancing wheat production to 25.6 million tonnes from last year’s target of 21 million tonnes. From last year’s 16 million acres of land brought under plantation, it is aiming to bolster per acre yield of wheat by staggering 21 percent—from last season’s 33 maund per acre to implausible level of 40 maund per acre.

Such a major leap in wheat output has theoretically and to an extent practically been very much possible, said official while commenting highly striving approach of the province for increasing wheat productivity. He elaborated that growing demand for increased crop production is one of the significant factors influencing the decision making by the policy makers. For this purpose, enhancing vertical growth is the only practical solution by focusing available area while leaving horizontal growth as a secondary mean to sustain efforts in this direction.

He explained that we are continue to witnessing a stagnating horizontal straight line as far as wheat production is concerned due to paucity of water that hinder brining more and more culturable waste for cultivation. Whereas the approach of aiming vertical growth that is mapped from bottom to top by enhancing yield through capitalizing on new range of high-yielding seeds and introducing best farming practices. The vertical growth is where a lot of innovation play their role in displaying valuable addition by enhancing production, he added.

By employing the aggressive approach, he said, Federal Committee on Agriculture (FCA) in its upcoming meeting this week may fix national wheat production target at 33.5 million tonnes against last year’s 28.4 million tonnes by bringing same 22. 8 million acres under cultivation, targeting 18 percent jump in productivity. The wheat production target for Punjab could be set at 25.6 million tonnes against last year’s 21 million tonnes, Sindh’s target would be 4.5 million tonnes against last year’s 04 million tonnes followed by Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa at 1.85 million tonnes over 1.8 million tonnes, and 1.6 million tonnes against last years 1.57m tonnes for Balochistan. As per Punjab’s working, efforts have already been initiated for achieving target of 25.6 million tons from 16.0 million acres of land by attaining 40 maunds per acre yield. In this connection, use of high-yielding new generation locally developed seeds would play pivotal role in getting per acre production around 40 to 50 maund per acre. Provincial government will ensure 0.5 million tonnes certified seed while subsidy of Rs 1500/bag on 16 high yielding varieties on 1.2 million acres to be ensured.

Concentrated efforts are being made to ensure availability of urea fertilizer up to 2.3 million tons and 0.8 million tons DAP.However, availability and pricing of fertilizers is being described a challenge in this regard. Awareness campaign has already been started from rainfed areas while production plan also communicated to field formations. Timely sowing of crop coupled with sufficient Irrigation supplies assume immense importance for achieving good yield. The timely start of sugarcane crushing would play important role.