The Pakistan Mutthida Kisan Mahaz (PMKM) protested over the slow pace of paddy procurement by the Pakistan Agricultural Storage and Services Corporation (Passco) and urged the government to pay money to paddy growers who are affected by low paddy prices. They also demanded that the compensation should be given in accordance with their agricultural land.
This amount would be utilised by these farmers for fertilisers, seed, pesticides, diesel and other inputs for wheat sowing, which would avoid flour crisis in the coming season. PMKM also staged a protest demonstration in front of the Passco head office. PMKM leadership also announced to hold a convention on December 13, 2009 in Lahore in which growers and farmers would discuss the problems being faced by the cotton, sugarcane, rice crops and other crisis such as fertilizers shortage etc.
The convention would devise a strategy to counter such difficulties in future and make agriculture profitable for the grower. PMKM leader also criticised the performance of the Passco during the current paddy growing season and said due to a faulty policy by the government, paddy growers suffered a loss of Rs 60 billion especially in Punjab.
He also questioned that why Passco was not provided finance to carry out paddy procurement while procurement centers were not set up in three divisions of South Punjab. He said that 80 percent paddy growers had sold out their produce even on deferred payments and they got Rs 700 to 750 per maund of their produce instead of the support price of Rs 1250 per maund.
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