Despite start of fresh rice plantation season the government seems in no hurry to fix the support price for the next paddy crop, sources told Business Recorder. Rice is a high value cash crop and is a major export item. It accounts for 5.7 percent of the total value-addition in agriculture and 1.2 percent of the GDP.
Area and production target of rice for 2006-07 were set at 25,75,000 hectares and 56,93,000 tonnes respectively. The size of the crop is estimated at 54,38,000 tonnes, which is 2.0 percent lower than the last year (2005-06) and 4.5 percent lower than the original target.
According to Ministry of Food, Agriculture and Livestock (Minfal), the lower production of the crop is due to the heavy rains in lower parts of Sindh and Punjab at the time of maturity logging phenomenon, which affected the rice production. The consumption of rice crop remained 2.2 million tonnes.
In 2006-07, the support price of paddy was fixed at Rs 306/40 kg. The season of rice plantation has been started but the government yet to fix support price. The agriculture sector consists of crops, livestock, fishing and forestry sub-sectors. The crop sub-sector comprises major crops like wheat, rice, cotton, sugarcane etc, as well as the minor crops like pulses, potatoes, chillies and garlic.
The internal composition of the agriculture sector has changed over the time and the share of crops sub-sector has gradually declined from 65.1 percent in 1990-91 to 47.9 percent in 2006-07.
Similarly, the rice crop has registered a negative growth of 4.5 percent last year. It means that the government will have to fix an attractive support price of paddy for the growers than ever before so that they could generate interest in its production, sources emphasised.
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