The growers of Super Basmati rice have rejected the government's new paddy support price of Rs 1250 per 40-Kg for 2009-2010 season instead of last year's Rs 1500 per 40-Kg and said by reducing the support price, the government has deprived the small farmers of their hard earned income of Rs 50 billion in just six months.
Talking to Business Recorder Chairman Basmati Growers Association Hamid Malhi, said the government paid Rs 1500 per 40-Kg paddy to the growers when dollar exchange rate was below Rs 70 and the country earned more than $2 billion by export of rice. "Now when the buying and selling rate of dollar is above Rs 82, the government has decreased the support price of super Basmati to Rs 1250 per 40-Kg, that means 30 percent reduction in the purchase price of this exportable cash crop with one stroke of pen" he argued.
He said the government has unilaterally reduced the paddy support price without consulting the stakeholders and hearing the viewpoint of the growers at a time when the crop is at a critical stage of its maturity and needs heavy investment for better yield and good quality.
Director of Basmati Rice Growers Association and agronomist, Farooque Bajwa argued "notwithstanding this uneconomical support price, the government has as yet neither fixed the paddy purchase target nor set in motion the procurement mechanism though only a month is left in arrival of the new crop. It may be recalled that last year the government fielded the Pakistan Agriculture Storage and Services Corporation (PASSCO) to purchase about 5,00,000 tons paddy in collaboration with the rice mills.
Bajwa said the government has unreasonably reduced the paddy purchase price by Rs 250 per 40-KG that means an unaffordable loss of Rs 7500 per acre to the farmer. "Since Basmati paddy has been sown over 4 million acres of land in Punjab, the accumulated loss to the agriculture sector would be nearly Rs 30 billion just for one cash crop" he added.
Ibrahim Moghal, Chairman Pakistan Agri Forum said besides reduction of support price, the government has heavily burdened the farmers with increase in prices of diesel and fertilisers recently. He calculated an additional burden of Rs 18 billion on the farmers for running over one million diesel tubewells to irrigate the crops and Rs 4 billion due to increase urea fertiliser prices.
Moghal said the agriculture sector was the only engine of the economy that has achieved some growth despite economic depression and financial crunch. However, he apprehended that due to government's bad planning and lack of meaningful support, the country would not achieve the vital production targets of the three main Kharif cash crops, cotton, rice and sugarcane and there would be a negative agriculture growth this year.