The Punjab Government deciding to increase the support price of wheat and sugarcane in the larger interest of farmers, has fixed it at Rs 1365 per maund for wheat while sugarcane's new support price will be Rs 190 per maund.

The farmers will get a huge benefit of more than Rs40 billion due to this increase, claimed the Punjab Minister for Trade & Industries Mian Aslam Iqbal, Punjab Agriculture Minister Malik Nauman Ahmad Langrial and Food Minister Sami Ullah Chaudhry disclosed this at a joint press conference here on Friday.

Punjab Minister for Industries, Mian Aslam Iqbal said that support prices of wheat and sugarcane were not increased during the last five years. The incumbent government has decided to increase the support prices of wheat and sugarcane keeping in view the difficulties being faced by the farmers due to increase in production cost of these crops.

He pointed out that provision of financial reward of sugarcane farmers' hard work has been ensured and no one was allowed to exploit them. Last year, sugarcane crop worth Rs 138 billion was procured from the farmers and an amount of Rs137.40 billion was given to them as payment which is an important step.

The minister said that farmers will get a benefit of Rs 29 billion due to Rs 10 increase in sugarcane support price. Proper reward of farmers' hard work will be ensured this year as well. He announced that soft loans will also be provided to the farmers having less than 12.5 acres land.

Provincial Minister Sami Ullah Chaudhry said that 85 percent farmers have less than 12.5 acres land in Punjab adding that interest of small farmers is being protected by the government.

Agriculture Minister Nauman Akhtar Langrial said that 42 percent farmers belong to Punjab who fulfill food needs of 58 percent non-farmers. 4.32 lakh bags of certified seeds have been distributed among the farmers and farmer-friendly policies are being introduced as well, the minister concluded.

Copyright Business Recorder, 2019