Wheat harvest seen 700,000 tonnes less than last year

ISLAMABAD: Pakistan is expected to harvest 700,000 tonnes (or 2.5 percent) fewer wheat this year and shall achieve the commodity production of 26.8 million tonnes, officials said on Thursday.

This expected output is 2.1 million tonnes less than the government's earlier fixed target of harvesting 28.9 million tonnes for Rabi (winter) year 2021/22.

On Thursday, the Federal Committee on Agriculture (FCA) fixed a target for cotton production at 11 million bales from an area of 2.5 million hectares in summer 2022/23. Last year, the production was around 7.5 million bales against the estimates of 9.37 million bales.

Minister for National Food Security and Research (NFS&R) Syed Fakhar Imam presided over this biannual meeting of FCA that is mandated to oversee strategic measures for ensuring food security and meets twice a year ahead of Kharif and Rabi seasons to fix and review the crops production targets.

In Pakistan, the Kharif cropping season starts on April 1 and ends on September 31. Crops in the season include sugarcane, cotton, maize, and rice, while the Rabi season begins on October 1 and ends on March 31, and its crops are wheat, barley, grams, lentil, potatoes, onions, tomatoes, etc.

The committee comprises the representatives of the federal food security ministry representatives, provincial agriculture departments, State Bank, ZTBL, National Fertilizer Development Center (NFDC), and the Indus River System Authority (IRSA) Meteorological office.

While reviewing the performance of the Rabi crops (2021-22), the committee observed that gram production for 2021-22 was estimated at 354.7 thousand tonnes from an area of 866.6 thousand hectares; the increase in output was 51.6 percent over the last year. The committee learnt that the potato production for 2021-22 was estimated at 7.74 million tonnes from an area of 0.3 million hectares; the increase in output was 34.8 percent over the last year.

After detailed deliberation on production of essential Kharif crops 2022-23, FCA fixed a target of 11 million bales for cotton production from an area of 2.5 million hectares, while it set the rice production target at 8.6 million tonnes from over 3.1 million hectares. The targets for other crops such as maize, mung, mash, and chilies were also fixed. The committee set the production target (2022-23) of sugarcane at 78.6 million tonnes from over an area of 1.2 million hectares.

“For the Kharif year 2022, the water availability in canal head will remain 65.84 million acre feet (MAF) as against last year’s 65.08 MAF. At present, all the provinces are getting good supplies in the system.”

The meteorological department officials informed the meeting that overall average rainfall was likely to occur all over the country. Sindh Province and Kashmir are likely to receive slightly above average (+10 percent) rainfall from July to September, they said. The area-weighted average rainfall of Pakistan from July to September was 140.8 mm, they said and added that sufficient water would be available for irrigation and power sectors.

Food security officials apprised the committee that rice and maize seeds would be amply available as per requirement.

The central bank representative said allocations of institutional credit for agriculture had substantially increased to Rs1,700 billion for 2021-22. The disbursement up to January 2022 was Rs740.3 billion, 43.5 percent of the overall annual target of 1,700 billion, which was 3.4 percent higher than Rs715.6 billion disbursed in the last year.

The FCA appreciated the positive impact of the fertiliser subsidy scheme, which contributed to high yield, and noted the supply of urea was under stress due to high demand and prices of DAP during 2020-21 for 2021-22 Rabi Season. Due to local production and available stocks, urea supply position would remain comfortable subject to the operation of LNG-based urea plants, while that of DAP would also be satisfactory, the meeting learnt.