Manzoor Hussain Wassan, has warned that productivity of wheat per acre is not encouraging and if the trend continues it will certainly lead to food security issue.
Adviser to chief minister on agriculture, Manzoor Hussain Wassan, has warned that productivity of wheat per acre is not encouraging and if the trend continues it will certainly lead to food security issue.
Sindh government was committed to ensuring growth in agriculture sector and in this connection the government was providing Rs5,000 per acre subsidy and providing fertilizer at controlled price, he said at a large gathering of farmers at Sarsabz Kissan convention in Latifabad on Thursday.
He said that committees had been formed and survey was being conducted in flood-hit areas in this regard. The survey would be completed soon, he added. He said that this year’s rainfall was exceptional and massive flows from upstream completely drowned upper Sindh. The subsequent flooding destroyed crops and inflicted colossal losses on farmers and peasants, he said.
He said that if there had been no flooding on such a massive scale the province would have been exporting wheat crop by this time. Pakistan might face food security issue as wheat was a staple food and a strategic crop, he said. Wassan said that productivity of wheat per acre was not encouraging. If it remained inadequate it would certainly lead to food security issue, he warned.
He said that several areas were badly affected due to delay in dewatering process. Around 1,000 people died during heavy rainfall and thousands of mud-thatched houses collapsed in flooding, he said. He said that government took steps to ensure provision of relief to flood-hit population and the departments concerned were still struggling to ensure early disposal of rainwater through pumping machines where necessary from the flooded areas.
He said the government was endeavouring to improve service delivery by agriculture department and was also planning to rid farmers of the use of pesticides.
Sindh’s secretary of agriculture Ejaz Mahesar said that agriculture department was looking after various programmes to ensure availability of drip system, subsidized bulldozers, harvesters, laser leveller and other farm machinery while watercourses were being lined to ensure water conservation.
He said that currently Rs5,000 per acre wheat seed was being distributed. After completion of this exercise, the government would approach various fertilizer companies over growing complaints about adulteration and artificial shortage of the farm input. He said that agriculture department had rejected licenses of 60 fertilizer dealers and notices had been issued to 120 others to end the menace of artificial shortage of fertilizer and adulteration.
He said the government was trying to enhance per acre productivity not only in wheat but also in cotton and sugar cane production for which research wing was working round the clock.
DG Agriculture Sindh Hidayatullah Chhajro said that this programme was an effort to create awareness among farmers about increasing per acre productivity for different crops.
Originally published at Dawn