JACOBABAD: The rice farmers of Garhi Khairo on Sunday staged a protest sit-in against paddy price being offered to them by traders.

Long queues of vehicles being witnessed at the border area between Sindh and Balochistan due to roadblock by protesting farmers.

Protesting farmers leaders have said that the government of Sindh has fixed paddy price at 4,500 per maund but traders offering them and purchasing rice at 2200 to 2300 rupees per maund.

The price offered by traders even could not meet the farmers production expenditure, protesters said. Rice prices experienced a record hike of nearly 90 percent in the last year due to the devastating floods that erased nearly 1.9 million tons or 80 percent of the expected crop production in Sindh alone.

Rice is the second biggest staple with an annual consumption of more than 3.7 million tons. In addition to the devastating floods, the record rise in the cost of production at both the farm and miller levels was also a major contributor to the price rise.

Paddy prices have declined sharply across Punjab losing nearly Rs. 1,500 per maund in the case of the Basmati 1509 variety during a month after new crops from the South also started to arrive in the markets.

Prices in grain markets across several districts of Punjab have declined from Rs. 5,300 per maund to nearly Rs. 3,800 per maund as Pakistan is set to reap the second-biggest rice production of 9 million tons in history due to increase in cultivated area.

Recent crackdown on smuggling to Iran and Afghanistan is also a major factor due to which prices may not go up before the start of next month.