ISLAMABAD: The federal government in close coordination with all four provincial governments has finalised all arrangements to procure about 8.25 million tonnes of wheat during its campaign for the year 2019-20 in order to keep the strategic reserves of staple grains as well as for exporting.
The procurement campaign in Sindh will start from March 15, whereas in Punjab it will start by next month, said an official in the Ministry of National Food Security and Research.
Talking to APP, he said that Sindh would procure about 1.4 million tonnes of wheat and it had also established 517 procurement centres in order to facilitate the farmers to sell their produces on official fixed rates on their nearest centre.
The sack distribution among the growers to be started by March 15 all across the crop growing areas of Sindh Province, he said adding that besides the provincial food department, Pakistan Agriculture Storage and Services Corporation would also establish its procurement centres to facilitate the growers.
He said that PASSCO would procure about 1.8 million tonnes of wheat from the four provinces and in this regard it had also established its 233 wheat procurement centres, adding that in Sindh it had established 17 centres, in Punjab 204 and 12 procurement centres had been established in Balochistan.
He informed that Punjab would procure about 4.5 million tonnes of wheat, Sindh 1.4 million tonnes, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) 0.4 million tonnes and Balochistan 0.1 million tonnes during the wheat procurement drive for the year 2019-20.
It is worth mentioning here that Senate Standing Committee on National Food Security and Research in its last meeting had recommended fixing minimum wheat support price at Rs1,400 per 40 kg for ensuring a better return to local farmers and encouraging them to grow additional wheat to cater its increasing demand.
The committee had also observed that wheat prices in local markets were at the lowest level as compared to other markets of the region, besides other crops, including oilseeds which had been providing more returns than the wheat with less input cost.
