ISLAMABAD: The Senate Standing Committee on National Food Security and Research, while expressing serious concerns over the skyrocketing sugar, wheat flour, and fertilizer prices has asked the government to take immediate steps in resolving the crisis, otherwise, it will not only have serious implications for the government but will also have adverse effects on the national security.

The meeting held here under the chairmanship of Senator Muzaffar Hussain was briefed by the federal minister for National Food Security and the federal secretary on the current situation of sugar stocks, wheat stocks, fertilizer stocks, certified seeds of various crops including wheat, subsidies on agriculture inputs, reduction in cotton output, and availability of water-related issues.

Discussing the agenda item regarding fixation of uniform minimum wheat support price in all the federating units; and measures taken by the ministry in this connection; in view of differences seen in support price of provinces last year, the panel was informed by the federal secretary National Food Security that his ministry wanted to fix the minimum wheat support price before the start of wheat sowing season but failed to do so as not received recommendations from the Sindh government.

The secretary said that there was no wheat shortage in the country, if the provincial governments starts releasing 40,000 tons per day, the current national wheat stocks will lost till June 2022, while new crop will start arriving in the market by the end April. Moreover, the government has also imported 1.91 million tons of wheat to deal with any unexpected situation.

The secretary said that his ministry was engaged with all the stakeholders on the matter of skyrocketing fertilizer, sugar, and wheat flour prices. He added that as a result of the ministry’s efforts, the government has approved Rs15 billion subsidies for cheap provision of urea fertilizer to the wheat growers, saying that this was the highest amount of subsidy for a single crop.

The committee also discussed details of availability of certified wheat seed in view of increasing yield per acre. The officials informed the panel that 637,608.9 tons of certified wheat seed was locally produced against total requirement of 1,075,562 tons, which is 59 percent of the national requirement.

Senator Kamran Murtaza said that food security was the most critical issue of the country but the authorities concerned have totally ignored it as they have no concern for 220 million people of Pakistan. He said that everybody knows about the routes of the smuggling but people at the helm of the affairs were not bothering to take it seriously as they themselves were involved.

The chairman committee appreciated the efforts of the Minister for National Food Security, Fakhar Imam, regarding the fixing of minimum support price for cotton. He said that a similar exercise to set the support price for wheat is required in order to raise the morale of growers; so that they do not opt for other high yield/low cost crops. He asserted that it was imperative that a forum be constituted that would include representatives from all four provinces to ensure uniformity of support price across the country. Regarding exorbitant increase in fertilizer rates, the committee was of the view that the government must take stringent measures to curb this since this would adversely affect the road to food sufficiency in the country; which must be the prioritized.

The members expressed serious concern over the skyrocketing fertilizer prices, saying urea was available at Rs 1,100 per bag in 2018 but now it costs Rs 2,150, DAP and NP fertilizer prices have gone up from Rs 2,800 per bag to Rs 7,800 per bag and Rs1,800 per bag to Rs5,600 per bag. The members said that from the fertilizer industry to the sugar industry all were looting the farmers but the government was unable to take any serious steps to check them.

The minister, while assuring the ministry’s support to the committee said that his ministry is seeking to develop a strategic wheat reserve that will cater to the needs of the people in challenging times.

Regarding increase in fertilizer especially Nitrophos and DAP, he said that these rates were totally dependent on international prices that have soared to 70percent.

The committee took up the current sugar crisis and stressed the need for evolution of a mechanism to ensure that crushing takes place a specified time; the importance of curbing multi-tiered, white-collar crime was emphasized in this regard.

Members were of the view that food security is a directly proportionate to national security and a very strong strategy must be employed to address it. It was asserted that seed technology must be enhanced and research institutions must be revitalized. The committee recommended that in addition to various facets of food security in the country; challenges of farmers must not be ignored.

Copyright Business Recorder, 2021

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