Kissan Ittehad wants Rs5,000 per 40kg wheat support price

Pakistan Kissan Ittehad president Khalid Khokhar has called for a support price of Rs5,000 per 40kg for wheat, according to Dawn. He warned at a Lahore press conference on Tuesday that growers may skip wheat sowing for the next season if the government does not announce its crop policy in time.

He said growers lack the means to apply balanced fertiliser since production costs are not being recovered. By his count, DAP fertiliser use dropped from 2.39 million tonnes to 1.25m tonnes. He also reported that sugarcane acreage climbed 16 percent to 2.454 million acres, while sugar output is forecast to grow by 25-30pc. He wants stocks kept for local use through November, with any excess shipped abroad.

A second speaker, Mahmoodul Hassan Bukhari, faulted the government for postponing decisions even though it holds crop and stock figures. He said earlier delays in exporting surplus sugar pushed losses onto farmers and cautioned that wheat sowing could be skipped without a prompt policy.