ISLAMABAD: The government has so far procured about 4.1374 million tons of wheat through its wheat procurement campaign for the year 2014-15 across the crop sowing areas in the country.
During the current crop season, government will procure about 8 million tons of wheat to fulfill the domestic requirements as well as keep the strategic food reserves, said Deputy Food Security Commissioner, Dr. Imtaiz Ahmad Gopang.
Talking to APP here on Thursday, he said that during the current campaign, Punjab Province has so far procured about 2.5 million tons of grains as against the set targets of 4.5 million tons.
He further informed that wheat crop sowing in the province had witnessed 2.75 percent increase during the last sowing season and it has achieved about 99 percent sowing targets.
He informed that the wheat crop was cultivated over 6.5 million hectares as compared to set targets of 6.69 million hectares for the period under review.
Deputy Food Security Commissioner said that Sindh Province has procured over 980,000 tons of wheat against the set targets of 1.3 million tons for current crop season.
This year wheat cultivation in province has recorded 4 percent increase to reach over 1.122 million hectares against the set targets of 1.100 million hectares, he added.
He said that wheat sowing was achieved over 102 percent area in Sindh Province as compared to last season which was a healthy sign for agriculture sector in the country.
About 0.45 million tons of wheat from Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and 0.15 million tons from Balochistan will be procured respectively to fulfill the domestic requirements, he added.
However, he said that wheat procurement in the KP was not started due to delay in harvesting as cold weather persist in the province adding that arrangements were finalized for starting the campaign.
Meanwhile, in Balochistan about 15,000 tons of wheat as against the set targets of 0.15 million for the period under review, he added.
Dr. Imtiaz Ahmad said that Pakistan Agriculture Storage and Services Corporation (PASSCO) has procured about 642,483 tons of wheat from its procurement points across the country.
He said that PASSCO has been assigned a task to procure 1.6 million tons of wheat across the four provinces by establishing their own procurement centers to facilitate the farmers in the country.
It is worth mentioning that PASSCO has established 12 zones and 227 procurement centers across the wheat growing areas to facilitate the farmers to sell their produces at official fixed rates.
The Corporation had started wheat procurement campaign from the last week of current month from their zones including Sargodah, Sahiwal, Vahari, Khanpur, Multan, Bahwal Nagar, Alipur, Layyia, Khairpur, Dara Allayar and Charsaa.
It may be recalled that wheat, which is the major staple food crop of the country witnessed about 3.5 percent increase in its sowing during the current crop season as compared to the cultivation of same period last year.
The major Rabi crop was cultivated over 8.82 million hectares as against the set targets of 8.84 million hectares of land for current sowing season.
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