Around 800,000 metric tons of wheat procured so far

ISLAMABAD: Wheat procurement campaign for crop season 2021-22 across the grain-producing areas is gaining momentum as about 11 percent of the procurement targets fixed for the season has so far been achieved.

A total of 797,239 tons of wheat were procured against the set targets of 6.900 million tons for current season, said Food Security Commissioner in the Ministry of National Food Security and Research Dr. Imtiaz Ali Gopang.

Talking to APP here on Monday, he said that wheat procurement targets for crop season 2021-22 were fixed at 6.900 million tons in order to fulfil the domestic requirements as well as keeping the strategic food reserves in the country.

So far, Punjab Province has achieved about 7.85 percent procurement targets and procured 313,911 metric tons of wheat, he said adding that g rain procurement targets for the province were fixed at 4 million tons.

The Sindh Province has procured about 282,383 metric tons of wheat and achieved 20.17 percent of its procurement targets, he said adding that the province was assigned a task to procure about 1.400 million tons of wheat during current procurement campaign.

However, the wheat procurement figures from the provinces of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Balochistan were not received, he said adding that all the arrangements to start campaign finalized as both the provinces would procure about 200,000 and 100,000 metric tons respectively.

The Pakistan Agriculture Storage and Services Corporation has also procured about 200,945 metric tons as against the set targets of 1.200 million tons.

At present abundant wheat stocks of over 3.036 million tons were available to meet local consumption, adding that available stocks were sufficient to tackle with the needs of 77 days with average consumption of 40,000 tons per-day, he added. He further informed that local wheat consumption for current season were estimated at 30.97 million tons with an average per-capita consumption of 115 kg per annum.

It is worth mentioning here that government had set a target to procure about 6.900 million tons of wheat during current season in order to fulfil the domestic requirements as well as keeping the strategic reserves, besides keeping demand and supply at smooth level in local markets across the country.

The provincial governments have also finalized their all arrangements to initiate procurement campaign for current season and also established their procurement centres to facilitate the growers to sell their produces at official fixed rates.

Besides, the Pakistan Agriculture Storage and Services Corporation (PASSCO) has also setup the procurement centres in different areas and distributed areas in zones, he said adding that arrangements for the distribution of gunny bags were also aligned to facilitate the farmers.