The Sindh Abadgar Board (SAB) foresees that acute water scarcity in Sindh would adversely affect the agriculture, including rice cultivation in the province. The government should therefore take strict measures to control the soaring prices of fertilisers, seeds and agro-medicines including the DAP, Zorawar, SSP, TSP and others.
This was stated by of Sindh Abadgar Board (SAB) Central Vice-President Gada Hussain Mahesar, while addressing a press conference here on Friday evening. He said SAB feared a major shortfall in rice production if the province did not get its share of water on time, under the water apportionment accord of 1991.
He said the paddy-sowing season began in the first week of April but Sindh was still waiting for water. "We are already two months behind the season while it has already started in the Punjab," he said.
He expressed concern over rise in the prices of different fertilisers and alleged that instead of keeping stocks in the warehouses, the companies were piling them up in the dealers' godowns so that they would sell them to growers at prices of their choice.
He said the prices of DAP, SSP, TSP and other varieties of fertilisers had doubled within a space of three months and prices of other agricultural inputs had also registered a rise. He called for bringing down prices of fertilisers and ensuring that those were available in the market.
He observed that despite producing 23.20 million tons of wheat, 5.92 million tons rice, 51 million tons sugarcane, 14,90 million tons cotton, 3.2 million tons maize and other crops annually, the country was facing grain shortages largely due to wrong policies.
The SAB Central VP blamed corruption, hoarding, smuggling and inefficiency of Agriculture Department for the food crisis. He also criticised former Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz for exporting the quality wheat at a rate of 400 dollars per ton and imported inferior quality at 450 dollars per ton, dealing a severe blow to the stocks in the country and causing flour prices to go through the roof.
He called upon the government to extend more low mark-up loans to the growers and proposed constituting Boards for rice, wheat and cotton at federal level having equal representation of growers, industrialists, exporters and dealers from all the provinces.
The Boards would look after the entire agriculture sector of the country under the leadership of the Federal Minister and formulate progressive policies, he said.
He also called for an agriculture committee on provincial level to look into the problems of growers and make suggestions for the development of agriculture. He said the present government would not be able to fulfil the promise of "Roti, Kapra aur Makan" unless a fair agricultural policy was made.
He said the distribution of water resources should be just and according to the 1991 Accord. A high-level inquiry into the utilisation of water management funds should be conducted, he added.
He also called for constructing cold storages for vegetables to face emergencies. He appealed to the government to form at federal level rice board, cotton board, wheat board by inducting the Abadgars, exporters, dealers for better policies in future.
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