An official of Ministry of Food and Agriculture (MinFA) told APP here on Wednesday that wheat procurement target was set at 6.57 million tons for the next financial year to fulfill the domestic requirements as well as for keeping strategic food reserves in the country.

Out of the total procured wheat, the Punjab has purchased about 3.191 million tons of the commodity as against the set target of 4 million tons, he added.

He further informed that Sindh and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KPK) had surpassed the targets as the Sindh had procured 1.395 million tons of wheat as against the set target of 1.3 million tons.

While in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KPK) procurement figures have reached 0.187 million tons as against the set target of 0.4 million tons, he added.

He said that 0.108 million tons of the commodity had been procured in Balochistn as against the set target of 0.07 million tons, whereas PASSCO has procured about 1.2 million tons of the commodity as compared to its targets of 1.3 million tons.

Initially, PASSCO was given the task to procure 1.3 million tons of the commodity adding that it would procure 1.26 million tons from Punjab and 0.04 million tons from Sindh, he added.

The PASSCO has revised its procurement targets and now it would procure about 1.5 million tons of grain while it has set-up 176 procurement centers across the province, he added.

The official informed that PASSCO has established eleven (11) procurement centers in Sindh, fourteen (14) centers in Balochistan for procuring the commodity.

It may be recalled that this year wheat crop has been sown over 8.8 million hectare of land in the country to fulfill the domestic consumption which was 3.5 per cent less as compared to the last year sowing.

Wheat crop has been sown over 6.68 million hectare of land in Punjab, while in the Sindh Province about 1.08 million hectare of land are under wheat crop,he said.

In Khyber Pakhtunkhawa (KPK) the wheat crop was sown over 0.73 million hectare and in Baluchistan it was cultivated over 0.32 million hectare.

The provincial governments in line with the federal government was providing 200 bags per farmer at an average of 10 bags per acre for small and medium growers for grains packing, he added.

The large scale farmers having land of more than 50 acre were provided 500 bags per farmer adding that when these bags would be filled by the growers they would be provided more bags.

Copyright APP (Associated Press of Pakistan), 2011