Govt lifts wheat purchase price by 8.3pc

ISLAMABAD: The government has raised the price it will pay to buy new-season wheat from farmers by 8.33 percent to Rs1,950 per 40 kg, a statement said, to support farmers and encourage them to step up planting that begins this month.

“To achieve self-sufficiency in wheat, the government has decided to increase the minimum support price for wheat to Rs 1,950/40 kg compared to Rs. 1,800/40 kg last year,” a statement quoted agriculture minister Minister Syed Fakhar Imam as saying.

“We hope this will incentivise farmers to grow sufficient wheat to meet our national production target of 28.90 million tonnes.”

The minister also hoped that availability of irrigation water and weather conditions will be conducive during rabi season to achieve the wheat output target.

“Due to much higher international prices of DAP fertilizer and shipping cost, the domestic price (Rs7,300/bag) has also increased significantly. But thankfully, the price of urea (Rs1,850/bag) is stable and significantly lower than the international price (Rs5,400/bag) because government provide Rs. 126 billion annual subsidy for natural gas.”

The minister said the government is working closely with the fertilizer companies to ensure adequate availability of both key fertilizers during the rabi season.

Moreover, the government has provided over Rs16 billion for fertilizer, seed, pesticide, agricultural loan markup subsidies. “These timely initiatives have helped generate record production of many commodities. “

The statement said the country has achieved the highest ever production of wheat (27.5 million tonnes), rice (8.4 million tonnes), maize (8.5 million tonnes), mung beans (0.275 million tonnes), onion (2.3 million tonnes), and potato (5.7 million tonnes) during the current year. Sugarcane achieved the second-highest production of 81 million tonnes.

For the 2021-2022 crop year sugarcane production is estimated at 87.67 million tons; 8 percent higher than that of last year. Rice production is estimated at 8.84 million tons which is 5 percent higher and Maize production is estimated at 9.0 million tons which is 8.5 percent higher than that of last year.

Cotton production as of 1 November 2021 is 6.2 million bales compared to 3.4 million bales (82 percent higher) at the same date last year.