The Federal Committee on Agriculture (FCA), which met recently, has fixed sugarcane production target of 55 million tonnes next year, while the sugarcane in the current year is 54 million tonnes, showing an increase of 1.8 percent only.
It may be stated that sugarcane production in 2006-07, at 54 million tonnes was higher by 22.8 percent as compared with 44 million tonnes in 2005-06. The FCA meeting highlighted the overall performance of the agriculture sector. It said this sector had made gradual improvements in the sugarcane crop.
In 2005-06, the production of the crop was 44 million tonnes, in 2006-07; the production of the crop was recorded 54 million tonnes, while for 2007-08 the production of the crop is expected to be 55 million tonnes.
The FCA found that in 2006-07, its production increased by 22.8 percent as compared to 2005-06. It announced that in 2007-08, the crop would be sown at an area of 1,039.5 thousand hectares and the yield of the crop would be 53.8 tonnes per hectare that is 1.3 percent more than 2006-07.
The share of Punjab in its production in 2007-08, would be 37 million tonnes, 13 million tonnes of Sindh, 5 million tonnes of NWFP and 0.02 million tonnes of Balochistan.
It is noteworthy that the share of Punjab in the production of the crop would decrease by 0.1 percent as compared to 2006-07, the share of Sindh up by 5.08 percent, contribution of NWFP would increase by 6.9 percent, while Balochistan did not have any contribution in 2006-07, but in 2007-08, its share is estimated to be 0.22 million tonnes.