Wheat market: A bright opportunity for Pakistan

By Riffat Mughal


KARACHI: Wheat production in upcoming year is an opportunity for government to recover its losses, occurred due to damaged of crops in Kharif season.

By increasing acreage for wheat production in the crop growing areas of Sindh and Punjab Pakistan can be able to produce wheat more than the target.

Higher wheat production would not only allow fulfillment of domestic requirements but would allow Pakistan to export more and earn higher foreign exchange.

Pakistan’s wheat production is expected to grow by 3.24 percent during the fiscal year 2011-12 (FY11-12).

Government has set the target of 25 million tonnes in current FY11-12. Devastating floods and heavy rains in the Kharif season has destroyed production of crops including cotton, sugarcane, onion, tomatoes and others. Still water stands at the fields creating problems for the farmers, sowing for Rabi season.

Rabi season has already started as the sowing of the crop in Pakistan started from beginning of October and continued till mid December while the harvesting period begins in April and stayed till mid June.

Wheat being the crop of Rabi season has provided an opportunity for the government to fulfill their losses by expanding area for wheat cultivation. Pakistan is among the top exporter of wheat can produce more crop at higher acreage so that the losses were faced by the country due to damage of bumper crop of cotton can be recovered from wheat production.

“Pakistan must produce 28 million tons of wheat keeping in view the global situation”, Agri Forum Pakistan Chairman, Muhammad Ibrahim Mughal said. Around 670 million tonnes of global wheat production is expected in FY11-12 while the global demand surged to 680 million tons.

He further added that Punjab can produce 22 million tons, Sindh 3.5 million tons, Khyber Pakhtunkhawa 1.8 million tons and Baluchistan can produce 0.7 million tons wheat. Quality of Pakistan's wheat is acknowledged world over and it can fetch premium price due to shortage of the commodity next season.

However, according to US Department of Agriculture (USDA) data, they expect worldwide wheat production in 2011/12 to reach 678.1 million tonnes, up from the 672.1 million tonnes forecast last month and the 648.2 million tonnes harvested in 2010/11. Exports from Pakistan remained at 1.0 (1.0; 1.0) million tones, data revealed.

This would provide an opportunity to Pakistan to increase wheat exports and earn more foreign exchange.

Government should make sure availability of all the agricultural inputs to get a bumper wheat crop. Government support is needed not only for removal of water from the fields but also for the availability of fertilizers, seeds and other agricultural inputs which would provide a support to the farmers.


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