Lahore - With more than 80 per cent harvesting completed so far, Punjab food department is hoping to meet the wheat procurement target till the end of the month.
The provincial government has already increased the wheat procurement target from 3.5 million metric tons to four million metric tons.
Official sources said that Punjab completed more than 80 per cent of wheat harvesting and 60 percent threshing and the process was likely to be completed in next week.  “Wheat harvesting and threshing has already been completed in South Punjab and the government expected to achieve its wheat production target of 19 million tons this season,” said an official of the agriculture department. The department was expecting that Kharif crops, including cotton, rice, sugarcane, vegetables, fodder, maize etc would be sown over 20 million acres this year. The cash crops, cotton would be sown over one million acres, rice 4.3 million acres and sugarcane over 1.8 million acres.
Agri Forum Chairman Ibrahim Mughal, however, claimed the government would fail in achieving its wheat procurement target both in the provinces and by the federal procurement agency because of offer of higher rates than official support price by the private sector. He argued that flour millers and middlemen were negotiating with big landlords and farmers rates of their produce at Rs1,350-1,370 per maund instead of official support price of Rs1,200 per maund and if they succeeded in luring growers then who would sell its produce to the government procurement agencies on lower rates. He held that farmers have had right to sell their product at high cost as they grown it on even higher cost. He was of the view that Passco would be buying 1.7 million tons during this season but it would not complete its target. He held that flour would not be available to the masses even at Rs50 per kilogram after few months.