Pakistan is set to miss its wheat production target by a significant 2.2 million tons, the Agri Forum of Pakistan (AFP) said on Wednesday
According to details, the country produced a total of 22.8 million tons of wheat in the ongoing fiscal year 2013 – 2.2 million less than the set target of 25 million tons for the year.
“The wheat production shortfall was mainly booked from the province of Punjab that harvested mere 17.5 million tons against its initial target of 19.2 million tons – showing a deficit of 1.7 million tons,” AFP Chairman Dr M Ibrahim Mughal told local media. He said that the decline in the production in the province was a result of poor planning and wrong estimations by the Directorate of Agriculture, Crop Reporting Service-Punjab since the sowing.
“The directorate had estimated to produce 18.6 million tons wheat in the year against the target of 19.2 million tons,” he said, “On the contrary, the AFP has warned the directorate and other concerned officials in the government in March-end that Punjab could produce not more than 17.8 million tons of wheat during the year.”
He said that the AFP was giving its independent estimates after conducting a survey. The forum has deployed 75 people in the province to conduct the survey. However, “the officials of the directorate were giving false estimates to please the secretary agriculture.” He said that the province produced lower wheat due to late sowing, water shortage, lower use of fertiliser, and increase in cost of production of other inputs. Besides, the province of Sindh produced about 3.1 million tons wheat against its target of 3.2 million tons; Khyber Pakhtunkhwa produced 1.2 million tons against a target of 1.6 million tons; and Balochistan produced 800,000 tons wheat against the target of one million ton, he said.
As per the information provided by the forum, Pakistan is required to produce 26 million tons wheat per annum to remain self-sufficient. Out of this, 23 million tons wheat is required for human consumption, 1.5 million tons for seeding, while another 1.5 million tons is wasted by the time it reached markets and flour mills.
Meanwhile, with the addition of 500,000 tons carryover stock from the previous year, the county is now having a total of 23.3 million tons wheat available for the year, Mughal said.
He, nevertheless warned that the food procurement departments of provinces and the federal wheat procurement agency have so far procured only 5.5 million tons wheat against the set target of 7.1 million tons for the year.
