ISLAMABAD: To improve agricultural productivity and ensure food security in the country, the government has prepared a strategy regarding regular supply and rational support price policy for major and minor crops.
Summary of the strategy has been sent to the Economic Coordination Committee (ECC), which might consider it in the meeting scheduled on January 12, sources in the ministry of Food and Agriculture told Daily Times here on Monday. Main purpose of the Strategy is to facilitate farmers through announcement of procurement, support prices for some crops and availability of agriculture inputs.
Main elements of the strategy involve the timely announcement of support price for wheat and intervention price for other major and minor crops, the sources maintained. The policy would also help in ensuring timely availability of farming inputs like availability of certified seeds, fertilizer urea, agricultural machinery, pesticides, weedicides at affordable prices with special emphasis on water conservation.
The country is confronting water problems and appropriate measures would be taken to ensure optimum use of water through drip and sprinkle irrigation and other water management measurements.
Under the new strategy, the government plans to announce production targets of both Kharif and Rabbi crops including Cotton, sugarcane, rice, maize, mung, mash, wheat, gram, masoor, sunflower and canola and other minor crops. The targets would be set with consultation with the stakeholders, the sources maintained.
Under this plan, the government intends to enhance farmer’s access to modern crop varieties and new technologies and promoting adoption of good agricultural practices for production of major and minor crops. New approved varieties of various crops would be introduced and awareness program would be carried out to inform farmers at appropriate times.
The government would take adequate measures to explore markets for any surplus production of a commodity in both internal and external markets. The marketing system would be improved so that the poor farmers would get due rewards of their hard produce.
In case of shortage of essential food commodities, public and private sectors through imports and maintenance of buffer stocks would ensure their supply.
The government has set 25 million tonnes wheat target for the ongoing Rabi season through 8.610 million hectors sowing areas target. The government has also fixed Gram target at 0.749 million tonnes with 1.002 million hectares.
The Federal Committee on Agriculture (FCA) in its meeting on October 2009 also fixed Potato target at 2.749 million tonnes over sowing areas of 0.148 million hectares. The meeting also set Onion target at 1.902 million tonnes from 0.243 million hectares area.
During Kharif season, the cotton and sugarcane crops failed to achieve its target with cotton production remaining at around 12.1 million bales against the target of 13.36 million bales. Last year the government achieved 11.8 million bales production.
Cotton Leaf Curl Virus (CLCV) and other diseases attacked the cotton production; this new strategy assures that insect resistant Bt Cotton varieties with tolerance to CLCV will be introduced in the country from next Kharif Season 2010.
The sugarcane production remained at 48 million tonnes against the target of 56.5 million tonnes in the outgoing Kharif Season. Last year the sugarcane production remained 50 million tonnes. The government expected the sugar production to remain at 3.5 million tonnes against the country’s total requirements of 4.2 million tonnes.
In the Kharif season, the rice production remained at 6.4 million tonnes against the target of 5.949 million tonnes. Last year, the production of rice was recorded to be 6.9 million tonnes. The production of maize remained at 3.34 million tonnes against the target of 3.414 million tonnes.
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