Various associations of farmers have demanded of the government to immediately start wheat procurement as 30 percent wheat harvesting has already completed in southern Punjab and Sindh. Kisan Board Pakistan (KPB) on Sunday said that last year government had started wheat purchase with effect from 10th April.
Though due to persistent hot and dry weather the wheat harvest season begun two weeks earlier, yet the government has delayed wheat purchase by Food Department (FD) and PASSCO by ten days this year to benefit middle men and the corrupt bureaucracy. KBP said the middlemen are purchasing wheat from farmers at Rs 820 to Rs 850 per 40 kilogram (KG) instead of the government's fixed price of Rs 900 per 40 KG. They will sell this wheat to the FD and PASSCO at Rs 900 per 40 KG in a couple of days. It alleged that the FD and PASSCO officials are like a hand in glove with the middlemen to fleece the poor farmers.
In a statement, President Pakistan Muttahida Kisan Mahaz (PMKM) Ayub Khan Mayo said that 30 percent wheat harvesting has been completed in the biggest wheat producing southern Punjab comprising Multan division, Bahawalpur division and Dera Ghazi Khan division, however neither the provincial government nor the federal authorities have set up any wheat procurement centre in these districts as yet.
He said the government had set a target of 25 million tons of wheat production during 2009-2010 season. However due to drought conditions, there would be expected one million ton lesser wheat production in the rain fed Barani areas of Punjab this year.
Mayo said that the federal government has one million ton wheat in its stock while the Punjab government has left over of 2.5 million tons wheat from last year's stock, whereas total storage capacity in the country is 2.6 million tons. "It is a fact that the government has no further space to store the fresh purchases except to keep them in the open places, he added.
He said that the cash starved Punjab government has decided to sell 2.5 million tons of wheat in the international market and on the other side, banks are not coming forward to extend loans to PASSCO for the purchase of wheat. "Due to government's faulty agriculture policies, the farmers had suffered huge monetary losses last year when the government failed to pick up perishable product from the farmers at right time and the farmers had to sell their hard earned produce to the middle men at much lower rates than the government's procurement price.
President PMKM demanded that the government should immediately start building storage to accommodate large quantity of agriculture commodities for long term food security and should export wheat or flour to Afghanistan through bank to bank or company to company arrangement so that the government earns foreign exchange and successfully counter smuggling of wheat.