Chairman Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) Bilawal Bhutto Zardari has rejected the increase of Rs 50 per 40kg in wheat support price. He proposed that wheat support price should at least be increased to Rs 1,600 per 40kg. He said that the world over, wheat price stands at Rs 1,575 currently while Pakistani farmers will get only Rs 1,350.
The PPP chairman pointed out that the prices of input for farming like urea, DAP and energy have increased while meager increase in support price is not in line with production costs and inflation.
"This government's anti-agriculture policies have destroyed our farming community and as a result agricultural produce has declined. This policy will lead to food shortage," he warned.
He said that all major crops have seen reduction in output like cotton, wheat and rice. He said that this year decline in cotton production stands at almost seven million bales. The government has left farmers at the mercy of market forces, leading to chaos, he said,
The PPP chairman claimed, "After destroying our industrial sector, the PTI government is now destroying agriculture. If our farmers stop tilling their land, our country will not have enough food to survive." He said that agriculture is the backbone of Pakistan. He urged the government to immediately bring forward a well thought-out farmer friendly agricultural policy and place it before the Parliament for approval.
He said that after five years, increasing the wheat support price by a mere 50 rupees is a joke with the farmers. H said that after the last PPP tenure, all successive governments have ignored the plight of the farmers. He said that during the last PPP government the wheat support price was increased from Rs 450 to Rs 1200. "This increase resulted as an incentive for the farmers and we were able to shift from a wheat importing country to wheat exporting country," he said. He alleged, "Governments across the world protect and support the rights and interests of their farmers and agricultural communities but in Pakistan, the exact opposite is being happened.
Our government is anti-farmers." Meanwhile, the PPP chairman chaired a party meeting here at Zardari House on Thursday regarding the preparations for the party's founding day.
The leadership of PPP Azad Kashmir briefed chairman Bilawal about the arrangements.
Nayyar Bukhari, Raja Pervez Ashraf, Chaudhary Latif Akbar, Chaudhary Yaseen, Sardar Yaqoob, Chaudhary Pervez Ashraf, Matloob Inqalabi, Javed Ayub and Qasim Majeed were present in the meeting.
Bilawal said that the founding day will be celebrated with the people of Kashmir this time. He also stated that the foundation of PPP was based on deriving a solution for the Kashmir issue.
Copyright Business Recorder, 2019
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