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       ISLAMABAD: Despite reservations expressed by the provinces, the federal government has set the wheat production target at 33.58 million tonnes for Rabi 2024-25 against last year’s 31.81m tonnes.

       Provincial governments proposed a sowing area of 9.263 million hectares with a production of 27.92m tonnes during a meeting of the Federal Committee on Agriculture (FCA) — the highest forum that fixes crop targets — held on Friday.

       Minister for National Food Security and Research Rana Tanveer Hussain chaired the meeting and urged the provincial governments to make utmost efforts to achieve the sowing and production targets proposed by the federal government to meet the wheat consumption requirements for next year.

       The Ministry of National Food Security and Research announced that the target of 33.58m tonnes would be achieved from an area of 10.38m hectares to attain self-sufficiency. Last year, wheat production of 31.81m tonnes was achieved from an area of 9.74m hectares.

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       Irsa sees 16pc fall in irrigation water

       The director general of the Federal Seed Certification and Research Department informed the meeting that the availability of certified seeds for Rabi 2024-25 would remain satisfactory.

       The Indus River System Authority (Irsa) Advisory Committee informed the meeting that it anticipated an irrigation water shortage of about 16 per cent for Punjab and Sindh during the Rabi season. Provinces have been allocated 31.136m acres feet, which will be reviewed next week.

       The FCA also set production targets for gram, potato, onion, tomato and chillies at 419,400 tonnes, 6,829,400 tonnes, 2,554,800 tonnes, 658,700 tonnes, and 56,800 tonnes, respectively.

       The Metrological Department informed the meeting that during Rabi overall normal to below normal precipitation is expected in most parts of the country, particularly in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, upper, central Punjab, Gilgit-Baltistan, Kashmir and upper and central parts of Balochistan.

       However, Sindh, southern Punjab and Balochistan expect slightly above normal rains. Near-to-normal rains are expected in November and December.

       The FCA meeting was informed that to ensure food security, the government was making utmost arrangements to facilitate the farming community by providing inputs at affordable prices, and taking steps to ensure better prices of their produce to bridge the gap between cost of production and output price in favour of farmers.

       Agri loans

       In pursuance of the government’s agenda for the promotion of the agriculture sector to increase the flow of credit to the agriculture sector, the State Bank of Pakistan allocated an indicative agricultural credit disbursement target of Rs2,250 billion for 2024, which was 26.7pc higher than the preceding year’s disbursement of Rs1,776bn.

       The FCA meeting also reviewed the performance of Kharif crops.

       Published in Dawn, November 2nd, 2024