ISLAMABAD: The Federal Committee on Agriculture (FCA) has fixed the wheat production target at 32.12 million tonnes for rabi season 2023-24, an increase of 12.20 per cent over last year’s 28.2m tonnes, according to a senior official of the Ministry of National Food Security and Research on Wednesday.

Punjab has been projected to produce 25 million tonnes of wheat while Sindh’s target is 4m tonnes followed by Khyber Pakhtunkhwa’s 1.6m tonnes and Balochistan’s 1.5m tonnes.

The production target would be achieved from 8.9 million hectares.

The FCA meeting was chaired by Minister for National Food Security and Research Dr Kauser Abdulla Malik and attended by agriculture ministers from Punjab and KP besides senior officials of all stakeholders.

Committee fixes targets for rabi crops

Fixing the targets of rabi crops for 2023-24, the FCA fixed targets for mung bean, mash, and chillies as well.

Mung bean production is estimated at 1.43m tonnes from 198,000 hectares, showing a decrease of 9.2pc in area however, an increase of 6.4pc in production over the last year.

Mash is estimated at 5.28m tonnes from 73,600 hectares, an increase of 12.95pc and 24.65pc in area and production, respectively, over the last year.

The chillies production for 2023-24 is estimated at 136,000 tonnes from an area of 122.1 thousand hectares.

The production targets for gram, potato, onion and tomato were fixed at 4,100,000 tonnes, 63,300,000 tonnes, 24,940,000 tonnes and 666,000 tonnes, respectively.

The committee also discussed the availability of seed for rabi crops, and it was observed that the availability of certified seed will remain satisfactory. It was also informed that the supply of urea and DAP is expected to remain stable in rabi.

The Indus River System Authority (Irsa) committee has anticipated a water shortage of 15pc for Punjab and Sindh during the rabi season. Provinces will be allocated 31.66 million acre-feet (MAF) of water during the rabi season. Prevailing weather conditions are supportive and the shortage is manageable, FCA was informed.

The committee was informed that the government was trying to facilitate the farmers by providing inputs at affordable prices besides ensuring a better price for their produce to bridge the gap between the cost of production and output price.

In pursuance of the government’s agenda for the promotion of the agriculture sector, the State Bank has assigned an annual indicative agricultural credit disbursement target of Rs2,250 billion for 2023-24 to 47 lending institutions, which is 26.7pc higher than last year’s disbursement of Rs1776bn.

During July-August 2023, the agricultural lending institutions disbursed Rs326bn, which is 14.5pc of the overall annual target and 44pc higher than the disbursement of Rs226bn made during the same period of last year.

The committee reviewed the performance of the kharif crops for 2023 and was informed that cotton production for 2023 is provisionally estimated at 11.5 million bales from an area of 2.4 million hectares showing a bumper increase of 126.6pc in production over the last year.

Rice production is provisionally estimated at 8.64m tonnes from 3.35 million hectares, an increase of 12.7pc and 18pc in area and production.

Published in Dawn, October 12th, 2023