Agriculture experts estimate that delayed wheat procurement and the cumbersome wheat buying procedure of government agencies will cost wheat growers dearly in the region of Rs 4.42 billion. Agri Forum Pakistan Chairman Ibrahim Mughal has underscored that delays in wheat procurement on the part of provincial Food Department and Pakistan Agricultural Storage and Services Corporation (PASSCO) forced small wheat growers to sell their wheat crop to the private sector and middlemen at a throwaway price. He was talking to a group of journalists here on Monday.
Mughal indicated that private sector and middlemen had procured around 1.9 million tonnes of wheat from small farmers, which was now being sold to government procurement agencies at the official rate of Rs 950 per maund. He believed that private sector and middlemen with connivance to government machinery had managed to make some Rs 4.42 billion this season.
He pointed out that while the Punjab government was fixing the wheat production target at 19.2 million tonnes, it claimed that the provincial government would procure every grain of the crop at Rs 950 per maund. However, wheat production remained 18.6 million tonnes, even though the government had failed to fulfill its commitment.
Mughal estimated that farmers had retained 11 million tonnes for their own food needs, seed and as fodder for animals. Out of the remaining 7.5 million, the private sector bought 1.9 million tonnes as it started procurement from April 17, this year while the procurement agencies contrary to the past tradition of starting procurement from April 18 to 20 every year. He alleged this private sector, mainly comprising near and dear ones of official procurement agencies, bought wheat from Rs 810 to Rs 850 per maund and caused a loss of around Rs 6.0 billion to wheat growers.
Giving a statistical overview, he pointed out that around 85 percent of the total 3,865,000 families, who grow wheat in the province, have small landholding of less than five acres. He said as harvesting started in the province around April 10 and 90 percent of the small landholders had sold their produce because they had to vacate their fields to avoid theft of their produce or any damage to it due to rain. They also had to sell their produce to buy inputs for the next crop of rice or cotton or to irrigate their sugarcane fields, he added.
The role of the government departments was to protect the right of peasant farmers, government agencies had left the wheat growers at the mercy of middlemen, Mughal concluded.
