Growers' body calls for steps to avert grain crisis next year

Sindh Chamber of Agriculture (SCA) has warned the Sindh government to ensure transparent procurement of wheat this season in order to preempt shortage of the grain and flour next year.

If the government did not take right steps now then no one could avert an imminent food crisis next year, said Miran Mohammad Shah, SCA's newly elected president, at a press conference held after the chamber's general body meeting.

He called for banning import of tomatoes to save Sindh's tomato crop that would be in markets from Nov 25. If the import was not stopped local farmers would bear huge losses, he said. He rejected wheat support price of Rs1,350 per 40 kilogramme fixed for 2019-20 season and said the price should be fixed at Rs1,600 per 40kg this season and procurement target should be increased from 1.2 million tonnes to 2.5m tonnes.

Shah termed unjustified

the deduction of 5 to 8kg of paddy by millers on the pretext of moisture in the grain. The Sindh government should curb the practice and fix paddy price at Rs1,500 per 40kg, he advised.

He said that sugar cane crop was ready for harvest but cane price and date of crushing had not been notified yet due to obduracy of sugar mill owners.

Growers anticipated that the Sindh government would fix cane price at Rs192 per 40kg like Punjab which had fixed the price at Rs190 per 40kg but the SCA would not accept any rate below Rs250 per 40kg this year, he said.

He regretted that growers had suffered around Rs25bn losses due to substandard cotton seed and pesticides and called for ban on sale of spurious seeds in Sindh and compensation for the cotton growers. Now, he said, due to damage to cotton crop the government would have to import cotton by spending $5bn which would be an additional burden on national exchequer, he said.