Federal Minister for Food, Agriculture and Livestock, Sikandar Hayat Khan Bosan said here on Saturday that the government is considering early release of wheat stocks to flour mills in order to check increasing wheat flour prices.
"Traditionally wheat stocks are released by the federal and provincial governments in September but keeping in view the situation, decision regarding early release of wheat stock is expected to be taken in next meeting of the Economic Co-ordination Committee (ECC)," Bosan said while talking to newsmen at the inaugural ceremony of 1st basic manufacturing plant of agro-chemicals set up with the help of China.
The function was addressed among others by the Punjab Governor, Lieutenant General Khalid Maqbool (Retd), Punjab Minister for Agriculture Arshad Khan Lodhi, Chief Executive of Pak-China Manufacturing Plant Javed Aleem Qureshi, Chairperson Pak-China Chemicals Madam Hao. Federal Minister for Information Technology Awais Khan Leghari, Federal Minister for Sports Mian Shamim Haider and State Minister for Defence Production Habib Ullah Warriach also attended the function.
The minister stated that the country had produced 23.5 million tons of wheat this year and in order to ensure good return to the farmers, government allowed export of this commodity. However, when its prices started rising due to hoarding, export was suspended and later banned, he added. Both federal and the provincial governments had sufficient wheat stocks and prices will soon be normalised.
Replying another query, he stated that cultivation of cotton was also better as compared to the last year. He said that the condition of cotton is better till date but it all depends on weather conditions too.
About control of milly bug disease, he said that the government had started a project to overcome this disease. A committee of experts had been constituted to monitor the situation, which would also prepare a recipe of medicine for the disease. In this regard, he said efforts were also being made to involve foreign scientists.
Bosan to another question said that the government wanted to promote BT cotton. Nevertheless, BT gene would be injected only in that quality of cottonseeds, which are virus resistant.
Earlier in his speech at the function he termed this agrochemical plant another milestone in Pak-China friendship and said that functioning of first ever pesticide plant would open new vistas of development for agriculture in Pakistan. He said that there was a lot of scope for Sino-Pak joint ventures in the field of agriculture especially in manufacturing agricultural machinery.
Regarding government policy, he said that the government was working to make agriculture a profitable profession. He said that all efforts were aimed at to encourage farmers to cultivate such crops, which could maximise their income and production and ensure sustainable growth of this sector.
He also threw light on various steps being taken by the government in this regard especially increase in the development budget and focus on horticulture and livestock sectors.
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