The government should increase the areas for important Kharif crops and ensure the availability of agricultural inputs including fertilisers, water and certified seeds to get maximum yield. Agricultural experts while talking to Business Recorder here on Tuesday suggested the government that cotton crop should be cultivated on 8.5-9 million acres, as the prices of the commodity at national as well as international level has increased manifold.
Mohammed Ibrahim Mughal, Chairman AgriForum Pakistan said that this year government should allocate nine million acres of land for cotton cultivation across the country. He said seven million acres in Punjab, 1.8 million acres in Sindh, two million acres in Balochistan and 0.1 million acres in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KPK) should be allocated for cotton cultivation.
"Pakistan would produce nearly 17.8 million bales of cotton, if 8.5 million acres was brought under cotton cultivation by farmers. However, sincere efforts on government's part are essential. The government should ensure timely availability of water, certified seeds, pesticides and fertilisers, besides improving management which for the last 64 years has created manifold problems for the growers," Mughal added.
As par AgriForum recommendation, the government should fix cotton production target in Punjab at around 12.5 million bales (with a bale consisting of 360 pounds, which is international standard), in Sindh at five million bales in Balochistan around 0.2 million bales and in KPK around 0.1 million bales.
Sugarcane production target of the country should be fixed at 67.5 million tons, including 45 million tons in Punjab, 15 million tons in Sindh, 0.75 million tons in KPK, with a total area allocation of 2.5 million acres out of which 1.7 million acres in Punjab, 0.5 million acres in Sindh and 0.3 million acres in KPK, Mughal maintained. He said that the farmers of cotton and sugarcane had received high prices of their produce in past few years and this time they would utilise more lands for cultivation of these two crops.
Total area for paddy cultivation should be fixed 6.5 million acres with total production target of seven million tons, including 4.5 million acres in Punjab with a production target of 4.5 million tons, Sindh 0.7 million acres with a production target of 1.4 million tons and in Balochistan paddy should be cultivated on 0.6 million acres with a production target of 0.5 million tons.
Maize production target should be fixed at 4 million tons with a total area allocation of 2.5 million acres across the country out of which 1.25 million acres with same production should be fixed for Punjab and Sindh each. Ibrahim Mughal said that due to non-agriculture friendly polices of the federal as well as provincial governments, farmers were facing numerous problems. "In Sindh middlemen and influential landlords are victimising the farmers by purchasing wheat below the government fixed wheat support price and than these people are selling the commodity to provincial food department at government fixed rate," he added.
When contacted former Agriculture Development Commissioner, Dr Qadir Baloch said that the government had ignored the plight of the farmers, saying that fertiliser prices have gone behind the reach of the common growers, while farmers in Sindh are unable to get government announced wheat support price.
He said that in the province middlemen were purchasing wheat from farmers at around Rs 800-Rs 850 per 40 kg, which is around Rs 100-Rs 150 below the official price. He said that last year urea fertilizer was available at Rs 750 per 50 kg bag, which is now available at Rs 1300 per bag.
"Doing agriculture for poor farmers is becoming difficult with each passing day, while the entire government machinery is busy to facilitate big landlords. The poor farmers in Sidh are unable to get wheat bags from government established Wheat Procumbent Centres without paying Rs 100-200 per bag commission," he maintained. He said that this year farmers might utilise more lands for cultivation of cotton, but until the permanent treatment of Cotton Leaf Curl Virus (CLCV) production could not be increased from 14-15 million bales.