KARACHI, Feb 21: Wheat harvesting is reported to have begun on a small scale in some parts of lower Sindh, leaving farmers with smallholdings with no choice, but to dispose of their produce at a throw-away price in the absence of any official support price.

“Inquiries are being made by the Punjab merchants on availability of wheat from new crop,” a trader in Jodia Bazaar disclosed who expects Punjab merchants rushing to Mirpurkhas and other parts of lower Sindh in the next few days to negotiate purchase with the rural commodity brokers.

“Wheat from new crop will start trickling in the local grain market by the end this month or early next month,” the local trader said, who expects a good harvest in the coming weeks as reported to him by his farming sources.

“We should harvest anywhere from 2.5 to three million tons of wheat in the next 10 to 11 weeks,” he said.

Officials in the Sindh food department, too, give an optimistic assessment of the crop as they gear up to procure 0.7 million tons of wheat from farmers this season.

The Sindh government is lining up Rs10 billion credit from banks to launch wheat procurement operations from the first or second week of March.

“Weather conditions remained ideal for wheat crop this season,” an official explained, who anticipates harvest of a bumper crop again but fears some problems in the absence of support price.

In the last season, too, the Sindh government was unable to procure targeted quantity of 0.6 million tons of wheat as a premature decision to export wheat by the previous government brought in speculators and hoarders who eventually controlled the market and regulated supplies almost for the whole year.

The government was forced to import more than one million tons of wheat at 450 to 500 dollars a ton.

A good quantity of this imported wheat would be landing at the Karachi Port late March or early April when harvest in Sindh and the Punjab will be in full swing.

According to media reports, the federal ministry of food and agriculture had proposed a support price of Rs640 for 40kg in the last meeting of the Economic Coordination Committee (ECC) held under the chairmanship of caretaker Prime Minister Mohammedmian Soomro. But the finance ministry and the Planning Commission opposed support price on the plea that it would push up wheat price and wheat flour price in the market.

Wheat price in the open market is now Rs1,600 per 100kg and expectations are that big farmers with better holding capacity will be able to get Rs550 to Rs600 on 40kg. But farmers with smallholdings of two acres to 12 acres, who are about 80 per cent of wheat growers, are placed at a much disadvantageous position.

“Hardly anyone of these small farmers will be lucky enough to get even Rs400 to Rs450 for 40kg of wheat,” a market analyst said.

Small farmers have no access to bank credit and they depend entirely on rural commodity brokers for loans to purchase inputs.

These inputs are given at more than double the price in market and interest charged is from 120 to 130 per cent.

The crop is procured even before it is ripe at a much lower price than that of officially declared price.