ISLAMABAD - Wheat crop has been cultivated on over 8 million hectares of land across the country during the current Rabi season.
An official in the Ministry of National Food Security and Research (MinNF&R) told APP here on Friday that wheat sowing in the country during same period of last year was recorded at 8.1 million hectares of land. He further informed that crop sowing across the wheat producing areas of the country was satisfactory due to timely rains in rain-fed areas and cultivation got momentum in arid areas due to increase in wheat support price and availability of other inputs.
In Punjab wheat crop has been cultivated over 5.30m hectares as compared to 6.30m hectares of last year, showing a decrease of about 1 per cent, he added. However, he said that wheat sowing in Sindh province increased by 1pc as compared to the sowing of the same time last year as about 0.98 million hectares of land has been put under the crop so far as against the 0.97 million hectare of last year.
Meanwhile, other provinces including Balochistan and Khyber Pukhtunkhwa have cultivated wheat on over 0.234 million hectares and 1 million hectares respectively, he added.
The official said that last and final figures would be received by the end of next month which would reveal the actual wheat sowing position in the country, adding that it is also expected that more acres would come under the crop cultivation as sowing usually continues till the mid of January in some areas in the country.
The MinNFS&R was coordinating with the provinces to increase per acre crop out put to produce bumper crop as the country harvested bumper wheat crop in last four consecutive years.