Action sought against sale of substandard seeds

NOWSHERA: The farmers on Monday asked the federal and provincial government and high-ups of the Agriculture Department to take action against the officials and dealers allegedly involved in the sale and distribution of substandard wheat seeds in Nowshera and elsewhere in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.

Speaking at a press conference, several farmers and local government representatives, including Asif Khan, former nazim Ijaz Hussain advocate, Dost Muhammad Kaka, Noor Zaman, Iqbal Khan and others said that unscrupulous elements were involved in the sale of substandard wheat seeds which would badly affect the production of the staple food.

They said that dealers and certain officials were giving impure and substandard seeds of wheat to farmers instead of Gulzar 2019 produced by the research institute, which had yielded high produce during the past years.

They termed the sale and distribution of substandard seeds economic murder of poor farmers on one hand and depriving the country of its race to achieve self-sufficiency in food grains.The growers set a three-day deadline to the officials to take action against the accused or else they would stage a protest sit-in outside the deputy commissioner’s office.