The UN’s Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) estimated that nearly three quarters of southern Sindh’s crops and two thirds of the food stocks have been hit by floods. Grain, cotton, sugarcane, fruit and vegetables have been submerged, clocking up nearly $2.0 billion in farming losses, a private news channel reported.
In Mirpurkhas, one of the most fertile and badly-flooded districts, branches of the cotton plants were blackened with water damage and the usually white buds went colourless and droopy. Rice plants that usually bloom above watery paddy fields were completely submerged, while stalks of sugarcane were miserably short at five feet tall. “This catastrophe has struck the province before people affected by last year’s flood had not even started to recover,” said FAO Pakistan representative Kevin Gallagher.
“Floods and rain deepen the risk of losing more vital livestock assets and for some, missing another opportunity to plant wheat and other essential crops,” he said. Sindh agriculture ministry said the financial cost of crop losses was so far was estimated at Rs 163 billion ($1.87 billion). Cotton faces losses of $998 million, income from chili crops will be down $427 million and both rice and sugarcane will lose an estimated $135 million, said ministry secretary Aghah Jan Akhtar. “Besides that, we have lost $180 million through the destruction of tomato, onion, banana and other vegetable crops,” he said.
