Punjab Food Minister Mohammad Iqbal said on Saturday that the provincial government was contemplating to export 500,000 tons wheat, after maintaining a strategic buffer stock of equal quantity, before the arrival of new wheat crop in April next.
"We are hopeful that Punjab will have a carryover stock of one million tons wheat this time. Of this, half may be exported," he said while talking to media men at National Food Conference held at a local hotel.
Iqbal, welcoming federal government's decision to cut down the price of Di-ammono Phosphate (DAP) fertiliser by Rs 350 per bag, expressed hope that the price reduction would encourage the farmers to bring more area under wheat crop. He said that the farmers should benefit from the incentives given by the government and should produce exportable surplus of wheat in the country.
Earlier, addressing the participants of the conference, Punjab Food Minister said that the present government was endeavouring to promote agriculture sector which formed about 25 percent of Pakistan's total GDP.
He regretted that agricultural productivity was declining due to myriads of factors including shrinking size of land. He said that food laws needed to be amended to help make pure food available to the masses. PCSIR chairman Dr Javed Arshad Mirza said that the Council was working to promote post-harvest technologies to help avert food and vegetable production losses. He said that PCSIR had also introduced value-addition techniques in the food sector by carrying out dehydration of food and vegetables.