CHAKWAL: Gul Mohammad, 67, is a farmer from Dhab Pari village of Chakwal district who owns a small land holding. He has just cultivated wheat on 7.5 acres. Unlike past years, Gul Mohammad had not to be worried about purchasing fertilisers and wheat seeds due to the Kisan Card issued to him by the Punjab government.

“I got Rs60,000 on my two acres and with that amount I have managed to buy four bags of DAP (diammonium phosphate) fertiliser and one bag of urea,” he told Dawn outside the fertiliser dealer’s shop in Chakwal.

Like him, 500,000 small farmers in Punjab got cards under Chief Minister’s Kisan Card Programme worth Rs1.5 billion.

Under the package, a farmer owning minimum one acre and maximum five acres was eligible to the facility launched in a short span of six months. A farmer holding Kisan Card is entitled to get Rs30,000 per acre as an interest free loan which is supposed to be repaid after six months at the time of wheat harvesting.

Due to high prices of fertilizers, particularly DAP which is Rs12000 per bag of 50kg, and recommended seed varieties small farmers are either unable to use fertilisers and recommended seeds or have to brave financial blow at the outset of the sowing season.

“Although we have to return the money we got through Kissan Cards after six months, this scheme is really helpful for small farmers as it has been launched timely,” Gul Mohammad said.

“If it rains well during the season, I would get a bumper wheat crop as I have used fertilisers and recommended seed,” he added.

As many as 4524 Kisan Cards fell in the pocket of Chakwal district while Talagang got 5209 cards. “Almost eighty per cent of Kisan Cards have been given away to the farmers,” Assistant Director Agriculture Malik Waseem Abbas told Dawn. He added that Kissan Cards not only brought relief to the farmers but would also help them in enhancing the wheat production in the province.

However, farmers whose land has not been computerised yet are left deprived of availing of the facility.

Mr Abbas urged the farmers to use recommended seed varieties like MA 2021, Barani 17, Subhani, Urooj, Fakhr-i-Bhakkar, Dilkash and Markaz.

Barani Agriculture Research Institute (BARI) Chakwal has introduced a new variety called “Shiraz 23” for the pluvial area of Potohar which would be available for the farmers next year.

Talking to Dawn, Senior Scientist Dr Malik Javed Iqbal who is also the head of wheat programme at BARI said “pre-basic variety of Shiraz 23 has been introduced and 300 of its bags weighing 50kg each were distributed among seed companies which would multiply the seeds by collaborating with the growers”.

Shiraz 23 has been named after Shiraz Ahmed, a former director of BARI. “The new variety has many characteristics. It is drought tolerant, disease resistant having the ability to produce bumper yield,” Mr Iqbal maintained. He added that BARI introduced fourteen wheat seed varieties so far including Chakwal 86, Rawal 87, Potohar 93, Kohsar 95, Chakwal 97, GA 2002, Chakwal 50, BARS 9, Dharabi 11, Fatehjang 2016, Ihsan 2016, Barani 17, MA 2021 and Shiraz 23.

However, farmers complained that they were not able to get seed prepared by the Punjab Seed Corporation which supplies seeds in Chakwal in a limited quantity.

“How ironic is that Chakwal and Talagang cultivate more than 352,000 acres of wheat annually yet there is not a single depot of the Seed Corporation in Chakwal,” said a senior official of the Agriculture Department.

Published in Dawn, November 24th, 2024