ISLAMABAD: The wheat crop will be cultivated over 8,893 thousand hectares of land during current Rabbi season (2013-14) to fulfil the domestic requirements as well as to export.
The government has fixed the production targets at 25 million tons as against the domestic consumption of 22-23 million tons per annum, said an official in Agriculture Policy Institute (API).
Talking to APP, he said that about 6,693 hectares of land was set to produce 19. 50 million tons of wheat during current Rabbi season with an average yield of 2,846.26 kg per hectare.
In Sindh province, production target has been fixed at 3.80 million tons while cultivating the major staple crop over 1,050 thousand hectares by producing average 3,619.05 kg per hectare, he added.
He further said that the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa was given the task to cultivate wheat over 750 thousand hectares during current Rabbi season and total production was fixed at 1.30 million tons. The average production per hectare has fixed at 1,733.33 kilograms. The official said that production target of Balochistan Province was fixed at 0.850 million tons by cultivating the crop over 400 thousand hectares during the period under review.
He further informed that average production target per hectare in Balochistan was set at 2125 kilograms.
It is expected that buffer stock of one million ton would be left as carry forward for the strategic reserves for next year where as about 6.878 million tons of wheat stock were present in the official stores to fulfill the domestic requirements of the commodity as well as for exporting, he added.
The government has started wheat supply from September 1, for the local flour mills to keep smooth supply of flour in the market and released about 700,0000 tons during the first 16 days of last month, he added.
To discourage the hoarding and artificial price hike, the government has also allowed the private sector to import wheat and about 146,000 metric tons of grains imported so far, he added.
The wheat import will remain open till December as the government has allowed import up to 600,000 metric tons and further decision in this regard to be taken after reviewing the situation in the country.
Wheat sowing in Sindh province usually starts from October while it get boom in November and continued till the end of December adding that due to increasing price trend of the commodity it is expected that area under the crop would increase as compared the last year, he said.
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