Senate Standing Committee on National Food Security and Research on Wednesday decided to bring in a private member bill for setting up of Federal Agriculture Price Commission aimed at providing relief to small farmers and strengthen the country's agriculture sector.
The committee, which met with Senator Syed Muzaffar Hussain Shah in the chair, decided to introduce a private member bill in the Upper House for formation of Federal Agriculture Price Commission, which would calculate cost of production and fix minimum support price of major crops, such as wheat, sugarcane, cotton and paddy.
Shah said that Federal Agriculture Cost Committee existed in the neighbouring country, which calculated cost of production and minimum sale price before the harvest season of 16 big crops.
Senator Muhammad Mohsin Khan Leghari suggested that a Federal Agriculture Price Commission should be set up in Pakistan for calculation of cost of production and minimum support price of four major crops including wheat, sugarcane, cotton and paddy. He said that formation of the Price Commission would require an Act of the parliament, therefore, a private member bill would be introduced in the Upper house in this regard.
The committee decided to start work to move a private member bill in the Upper House to set up Federal Agriculture Price Commission at the federal level.
The committee also discussed wheat procurement in Punjab and Sindh for 2015-16. The committee was informed that out of 4 million tons of wheat procurement target, only 3.2 million tons was procured during the last year. The committee asked Punjab government to increase wheat procurement target to benefit small wheat growing farmers and not to leave them at the mercy of middleman and other forces.
The parliamentary body also asked the Punjab and Sindh governments to give a progress report in the next meeting about availability of Bardana, operational centres for procurement and the amount of procurement made.
Tariq Masud, Managing Director (MD), Pakistan Agriculture Storage Services Cooperation (PASSCO), told the committee that PASSCO had sufficient quantity of unused Bardana of last. "The total wheat procurement of PASSCO is 1.8 million metric tons and currently it has 1.3 million metric tons carryover stock of wheat from last year," he said.
He informed the committee that PASSCO had Rs 70 billion outstanding against the federal government on account of procuring and disbursing wheat to various areas and sectors since 2008.
The committee was informed that the Sindh government had fixed 1100,000 metric tons of wheat procurement target for 2016 and government of Punjab had fixed 3.4 million metric tons for the current year.
Representatives of Kissan Support Services Limited (KSSL) told the committee that vacancies were advertised in the leading newspapers and proper procedure was being followed for appointments.
The committee directed KSSL to give progress report in next meeting about the applications received, break-ups of areas and interview schedule.
About the position of PARC land and case in Supreme Court of Pakistan, the committee was told that the hearing of the case was still pending.
The committee was also attended by Senator Hari Ram, Senator Muhammad Zafarullah Khan Dhandla, Federal Minister for National Food Security Sikandar Bosan and other senior officials.
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