Country may miss wheat production target

The country may miss wheat production of 26.3 million tons fixed by the government for 2014-15, as secretary Ministry of National Food Security and Research (MNFS&R) on Friday said that country may produce 25.7 million tons wheat, as the recent rains caused damages to the wheat crops.
The Federal Committee on Agriculture (FCA) had fixed wheat production target at 26.3 million tons for Rabi season 2014-15, with Punjab targeted to produce 19.6m tons, Sindh 4.4m tons, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) 1.4m and Balochistan 0.9m tons.
Seerat Asghar, secretary MNFS&R speaking at a press conference said that country may produce 25.7 million tons wheat as the recent rains damages the wheat crops in various parts of the country.
He said that his ministry has started negotiation with provinces to device ways and means to reduce production costs of different crops. MNFS&R has held a meeting with Punjab province regarding reduction of production cost of different cost and would soon hold meeting with other provinces. "MNFS&R has also sent some proposals to Ministry of Finance for the upcoming budget regarding provision of subsidy to growers", he said.
He denied that MNFS&R is responsible for allowing import of inferior quality wheat from Russia and Ukraine. He also rejected the impression that Ministry has now decided to export wheat on huge subsidy to give undue benefit to the same people who reaped the benefit of import of low quality wheat. All these allegations against the Ministry are baseless and far from truth, he said.
"No one in the Ministry has ever issued any order to allow the import of wheat in Pakistan. According to the Import Policy Order dated March 08, 2013, issued by the Ministry of Commerce, there is no restriction on the import of wheat," he said.
He said that wheat is imported every year into Pakistan without any restriction. Under the WTO, Pakistan has committed not to put restrictions on the import of wheat, he said. He said that the permission to export 1.2 million tons of wheat was given by the ECC on the specific recommendations of the provincial governments of Punjab and Sindh. Only the stocks of the provincial governments will be exported and, therefore, no benefit of the decision can accrue to the federal government, he said.
The secretary said that fortunately, we had two bumper crops in successive years. During this time the international prices of wheat fell drastically due to abundance of wheat stocks in the international market. The federal government has given permission for export of wheat not only to the private exporter but they have allowed export of wheat at the government to government (G to G) level, he said.
He said that due to higher domestic price of wheat, Pakistan could not export sizeable quantity of wheat to the neighbouring countries.