The Punjab Food Department has been allocated a sum of Rs230 million in the budget 2011-12, to build new storage facilities in the province for overcoming the shortage of capacity, estimated at 2.1 million tonnes.
According to the budget document, the Food Department is mandated to ensure not only the provision of quality flour to general public at affordable prices but also to provide fair returns to the growers through commodity purchase operations.
The department fulfils this responsibility through an organised procurement system, strategically located network of permanent and transient storage and regulated supply of wheat for welfare purposes as well as for meeting the demand of the market and consumers.
During the procurement campaign of previous and current year’s wheat crop, the shortage of storage capacity was critically felt and an additional requirement was estimated at about 2.1 million tonnes. Keeping this in view, an allocation of Rs230 million has been made for the next financial year. The objective of this strategic intervention is to build state of the art concrete silos of 100,000 metric tonnes at D.G. Khan, Rajanpur and Lahore, the document concluded.
In order to meet the challenges of food security and increasing the growth rate for employment generation and poverty reduction in rural areas, Punjab government has collectively allocated a sum of Rs5900 million in the proposed budget 2011-12 for agriculture and livestock sector development programmes.
The provincial government has allocated Rs3400 million for agriculture while livestock and dairy development have been allocated a sum of Rs2500 million in the budget 2011-12.
The amount for the agriculture sector is 123 per cent higher than last year’s revised allocation, while the share for livestock and dairy development is 134 percent higher than last year’s revised allocation, the budget document states.
During the year, the government’s focus would remain on production of healthy crops, which is the first step towards attaining food security. Self-reliance, food security and promotion of high-value exportable crops through improved practices are key areas for agriculture sector.
The objective of the Annual Development Programme (ADP) of the sector is to increase farmers’ income through enhanced crop productivity, better support prices and diversified agriculture, the document added. An emphasis would also remain on high-value agriculture, efficient water conveyance through improved water courses, precision land leveling and drip and sprinkler irrigation.
The document discussing strategic interventions to be taken by the provincial government for productivity enhancement, it said that cotton sowing would be promoted in Thal through pressurised irrigation, promotion of mechanised rice transplanting through service providers to achieve optimal plant population per acre and eradication of poverty through distribution of house-cum-garden plots on a lease basis in Southern Punjab.
Other interventions for the next financial year include the development of command area of mini dams in Barani areas, promotion of kitchen gardening in big towns to overcome high vegetable prices and supply chain improvement to provide three-tier support to farmers, processors and exporters to enhance export of fruit and vegetable through Global GAP/IFS compliance. While on the research front, the government plans to conduct research on salt affected soils and brackish water to evolve low cost technology for utilisation of poor quality water for agriculture purposes in Southern Punjab.
Rice Research Station at Bahawalnagar has been established for backstopping of newly emerging parboils rice cultivation and processing and research on biotechnology genetic sciences. Up-gradation of Rice Research Institute at Kala Shah Kaku for accelerating the evolution of new varieties and establishment of the Mango Research Institute at Multan are other initiatives government plans to take with regards to research next year.
