The meeting noted that during last three years agriculture inputs' prices had increased by 20 to 25 percent, hence, an increase in wheat support price has been suggested to bring more area under cultivation and increase per acre wheat production.
The meeting was attended by Minister for Information and Broadcasting Qamar Zaman Kaira, Minister for Industries and Production Mir Hazar Khan Bijrani nad representatives from Planning Commission and Agriculture Ministry. The meeting supported the TFA's wheat support price as the prices of inputs like fertiliser, electricity, machinery and other have increased manifolds against those three years back.
"The per acre wheat production cost has increased and there would be no attraction for the farmers in sowing the crop if last year's support price remained intact. The calculation made by the Agriculture Policy Institute (API) suggests that we must increase the support price to offer some incentives like guaranteed procurement prices to encourage the farmers to grow more wheat, maintaining that the food security is the prime responsibility of the government and it has become a challenge in case of staple food crops after the recent devastating floods", Gondal said.
He said the TFA unanimously opined that the poor farmers need to be supported in the aftermath of the floods to secure production of food crops in the coming years. The indicative price for rice is pending for the time being as the commodity is fetching good prices in the open market.
He said that it is necessary to support farmers of flood-hit areas to put agriculture sector back on track and the government would provide seeds and fertilisers to farmers in flood-hit areas free of cost. The minister said that the ministry in consultation with all the provinces would finalise a relief package for the flood affected areas.
He said that total amount of the package could be around Rs 15 billion and the federal government would provide 50 percent while the remaining 50 percent will be contributed by the provinces. The planning commission was asked to devise a comprehensive plan to ensure that farmers across the board were getting the announced support price of wheat.
Chairman of AgriFourm Pakistan, Ibrahim Mughal, lauded TFA suggestion and said that it is an in-time proposal as input cost has increased manifold. He said that under the prevailing conditions if the government is increasing the wheat support price from Rs 950 to Rs 1,000 it will benefit both the government and the growers.
Pakistani farmers have the capacity to produce 25 million tons of wheat for the upcoming season, but government support is needed, adding that increased wheat support price will help reduce the cross border smuggling of the commodity.