Federal government has announced to purchase raw cotton (Phutti) at Rs 1500 per maund through Trading Corporation of Pakistan (TCP) for safeguarding farmer's interest, similarly the federal government fixed Minimum Indicative Price (MIP) of Super Basmati rice (paddy) at Rs 1500 per 40 kg and Basmati-385 rice (paddy) at Rs 1250 per 40 kg.
The government is expecting 6.363 million tonnes rice production for the current year 2008-09 against the target of 5.720 million tones, showing an increase of 11 percent. "The higher production was due to attractive price of rice in local and foreign markets," an official in the ministry of Food, Agriculture and Livestock told here on Thursday. Last year the rice production was 5.563 million tonnes.
The official said that country's total rice requirement was about 2.5 million tonnes and keeping in view expected rice production of 6.363 million tonnes, 3.863 million would be available as surplus. Such huge exportable quantity would help the country to earn foreign exchange. Realising such bumper production of the commodity, the federal government in the Economic Co-ordination Committee (ECC) meeting earlier decided to purchase about one million tonnes paddy rice through Pakistan Agriculture Storage and Supplies Corporation (Passco).
After the ECC decision, the Economic Monitoring Committee also determined to purchase paddy rice from farmers though Passco. This decision would help the farmers to get a minimum price for their hard produce. Rice growers earned good return for their hard produce last year and it induced farmers to produce more this year.
However, the world rice production also returned to the higher side, which led to a decline in its price. Earlier the Ministry of Food, Agriculture and Livestock had given mandate to the Passco for procurement of Irri-6 rice at the price of Rs 700 per 40 kg.
Now with the issuance of this notification, the Passco would purchase a total of one million tonnes of rice paddy of Irri-6, Super Basmati and Basmati 385/2000 for the current season in the country. The announcement of MIP would further help for the stability of rice (paddy) price in the local market.
The official further informed that the harvesting of super Basmati and Basmati-385/2000 would begin early days in next month (November), while the harvesting of IRRI-6 was in full swing in the country. The area under rice production in Punjab had increased by about 13.3 percent, while in Sindh, the area had increased by 16 percent. The overall increase in rice crop was estimated at about 13 percent.