Winter rains to start next week

The prolonged drought will end shortly as light to moderate rains are likely to start from January 6th in the upper regions of the country, Director National Weather Forecasting Centre, Dr Muhammad Hanif told Business Recorder, here on Thursday. Talking on telephone from Islamabad Dr Hanif said that there have been no rains in the months of October, November and December creating drought conditions in the rain fed plains areas of Punjab.
He said weather is likely to remain cold/dry in most parts of the country. Foggy/Misty conditions are likely to prevail over some plain areas of Punjab, KP and Sukkur division. Most parts of the country are likely to remain under the grip of severe cold wave during next 48 hours in the country, he added.
Director General Agriculture Extension Services Punjab Dr Anjum Ali told this scribe that the current drought has badly affected Rabi crops especially wheat, oil-seeds, mustards and grams crops over 3.3 million acres in the rain-fed Barani areas of Punjab. He said wheat crops have been sown over 1.3 million acres and grams over 2 million acres this year in Barani areas of north and north-western Punjab which contributes about 0 85 million tons of wheat, and eighty percent grams/cereal production of the province.
Dr Ali said that the most immediate consequence of drought is a fall in crop production, besides where crops have been badly affected by drought, pasture production is also reduced leading to weight loss and deaths of animals.
He said that wheat being the staple diet is the most important crop and cultivated on the largest acreage in almost every part of the country. In Punjab so far it has been sown over 16.2 million acres, still 3 percent below the target area. It contributes 14.4 percent to the value added in agriculture and 3.0 percent to GDP.