ISLAMABAD: The country has missed wheat production target as the estimated production of the commodity is 26.8 million tons against the set target of 28.9 million from an area of 9.2 million hectares of land for Rabi season 2021-22 due to low fertiliser off-take and unfavourable weather conditions.
“According to provincial governments’ reports, shared during Federal Committee on Agriculture (FCA) meeting, wheat production for 2021-22 is estimated 26.8 million tons from an area of 8.99 million hectares, showing a decrease of production is 2.5 percent over the last year”, an official source said, adding that the meeting was presided over by Federal Minister for National Food Security and Research (MNFS&R) Syed Fakhar Imam.
The FCA during its previous meeting held in April fixed wheat crop production target at 28.9 tons for Rabi season 2021-22 from an area of 9.2 million hectares of land.
The meeting was informed that gram production for 2021-22 estimated at 354.7 thousand tons from an area of 866.6 thousand hectares showing an increase in production by 51.6 percent over the last year. The committee was informed that the potato production for 2021-22 has been estimated at 7.74 million tons from an area of 0.3 million hectares showing an increase in production is 34.8 percent over the last year.
Minister briefs PM on expected wheat output
The FCA reviewed the performance of Rabi crops (2021-22) and fixed targets for the Kharif season 2022-23.
The meeting fixed 11.0 million bales of cotton production target from an area of land 2.5 million hectares. It also fixed rice production target at 8.6 million tons’ production from an area of 3.1 million hectares of land.
The committee fixed the production target of sugarcane at 78.6 million tons from area of 1.2 million hectares, he said.
He said that the meeting was informed that water availability in canals head for Kharif year 2022, will remain 65.84 million acres’ feet (MAF) as against last year, which was 65.08 MAF.
At present, all the provinces are getting their satisfactory supplies in the system, the meeting was further informed.
The senior officials of the Pakistan Meteorological Department (PMD) that Sindh Province and Kashmir are likely to receive slightly above normal (+10 percent) rainfall during August and September.
The representative from the State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) informed that allocations of institutional credit for agriculture had substantially increased to Rs1,700 billion for 2021-22 and the disbursement up to January 2022 is Rs740.3 billion, which is 43.5 percent of overall annual target of 1,700 billion, which is 3.4 percent higher than the disbursement of 715.6 billion made during last year.
Copyright Business Recorder, 2022
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