High Powered Agriculture Committee To Meet On October 13

ISLAMABAD, Oct 6 (UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 6th Oct, 2022 ) :Ministry of National Food Security and Research has convened a meeting of Federal Committee on Agriculture (FCA) on October 13 to review the performance of Kharif crops and to set the production target of Rabi crops for season 2022-23 in the country.

Minister for National Food Security and Research would chair the meeting, whereas representatives of provincial food and agriculture departments, heads of field extensions and other senior officials of relevant organizations would participate in the meeting.

The meeting of the high power committee is of significant importance, specially aftermaths of recent flash floods and torrential rains, which damaged and destroyed minor and major crops standing over thousands of hectares, besides huge loss to livestock and other agriculture infrastructure.

The FCA would set the targets of wheat sowing in the country, which is the major cash crop and vital source of staple food of local population, besides fixing the targets of other minor crops including season vegetables, pulses, oil seeds and other to fulfill the domestic requirements, said Food Security Commissioner in the Ministry of National Food Security and Research Imtiaz Ali Gopang.

Talking to APP here on Thursday, he said that the special emphasis of the meeting would be on the revival of national agriculture and livestock sectors, which faced huge loss due to recent devastated flash floods and heavy rains during monsoon season.

He said that the meeting would also focus on enhancing area under wheat cultivation, which was recorded at 2.222 million acres during last season by devising a viable mechanism of incentives and ensuring appropriate rate of returns to local farming communities for their produces.

The areas under wheat sowing is likely to be enhanced by 100,000 to 200,000 acres due to enhanced moisture contents across the grain producing areas in the country, particularly the rain fed areas including Potohar region, he said adding efforts afoot to fully utilize such potential to ensure sufficient production of wheat to get rid of imports.

He said that government was also taking measures to ensure maximum availability of certified seeds, fertilizers and other pesticides to bring more area under Rabi crops production, besides ensuring easy excess to credit facility during the season.

In order to ensure uninterpreted supply of Urea fertilizes to farming community, he said that government has already imported about 200,000 tons of the above mentioned commodity and arrangements for the imports of further 300,000 tons were also aligned to keep smooth the supply during the season.

However, he said that due to prevailing international scenario, the prices of DAP fertilizer jacked up as it was recorded at Rs15,000 to Rs16,000 per 40 kg bag, adding that mechanism to be evolved to provide DAP on subsidized rates to enhance per-acre crop output for maintaining self-sufficiency in staple food production.

In order to enhance the wheat sowing during the current season, as well as encouraging the local farmers, the Ministry of National Food Security and Research has submitted a proposal to fix minimum support price to Economic Coordination Committee (ECC) of the Cabinet for approval, he added.

He said that it was expected that ECC would make deliberations to set minimum support price of wheat for current season and approve it in its next scheduled meeting.