The rain and snowfall on Thursday night in northern parts of the country will be a good dose for the wheat crop in Barani areas of Punjab, NWFP and now farmers are in a position of late sowing. The last night thunderstorm and rainfall also brought the mercury down considerably and winter season is on the anvil.
Talking to this scribe, an official of meteorological department said that 22mm rain has been recorded in Rawalpindi, while 7mm in capital during the last 24 hours and there is forecast of more rains. The most serious input hampering crop production is the dwindling supply of irrigation water. But Irsa has anticipated water availability for Rabi 2008-09 as 24.090MAF including storage of Tarbela and Mangla. Punjab and Sindh provinces may like to face 34 percent shortage. NWFP and Balochistan will get full share.
Official in the agricultural ministry confirmed that the rain is surely a good sign for Barani areas of NWFP and Punjab. They said that wheat production target for 2007-08 was 24,000,000 tons from an area of 8,578,000ha, while required yield was 2,798 kg/ha. But, the government succeeded in achieving production of only 20,959,000 tons from 8,550,000ha, while the yield was 2,451kg/ha, which was 10 percent less as compared to last year.
The official said that production target for 2008-09 is 25,000,000 tons from an area of 8,610,000ha with a yield target of 2,904 kg/ha. The winter season would not bring as much prosperity and happiness for the inflation hit common people in the country. As they are already facing flour shortage and other items which have gone up during last few months.
The winter would further bring miseries for poor and low-middle class people, as they are not in a position to buy expensive winter clothing. They throng to Sunday bazaars, where the prices of second hands clothes imported from the Western world in bulk were low to save themselves from the chilling cold. Similarly now the prices of dry fruits would go out of the reach of common men.
Comments
Comments are closed.