HYDERABAD: The Sindh Abadgar Board (SAB) on Sunday pointed out noticeable decline in the production of major crops in the just-concluded kharif 2024 and a disproportionate rise in prices of farm inputs.

The board, which met with its president Mahmood Nawaz Shah in the chair, focused on production losses in paddy, cotton, sesame and sugar cane crops in kharif 2024. Yields in cane crop being harvested were 15pc to 20pc less than last year’s and these losses could be attributed to very high temperatures in summer, said the meeting.

Conversely, the crops prices saw reduction from last year’s and rising trend in farm inputs, it said.

It said that cotton’s rate, which hovered between Rs7,000 and Rs10,000 in 2023, plummeted to Rs7,000 and Rs8,000 in 2024. Paddy was sold for Rs3,000-Rs3,400 in 2023 but in 2024 its price dropped to Rs2,400-Rs2,800. Wheat was at for Rs4,000-Rs4,100 in 2023 but its price declined to Rs2,800-Rs3,400 in 2024 while sugar cane, which was being lifted at Rs425 per 40kg in 2023 saw reduction in price to Rs400 in 2024.

Expresses concern over steep rise in prices of farm inputs

The meeting was told that the difference in prices was due to one-sided and abrupt deregulation policy implemented by the government. The government should first have planned and afterwards implemented the deregulation policy in letter and spirit, it said.

In the absence of competitive markets, storage, processing and ban on exports the government literally threw agricultural produce to middlemen, hoarders and very large monopolistic processors, lamented the meeting.

Of these commodities, only rice was allowed to be exported while others were either not allowed to be exported or were heavily regulated which created glut in the market and therefore market-driven prices were not achieved, it said.

It was strange while governments elsewhere in the world always incentivized domestic production in Pakistan the domestic production was being penalised. The domestic production of cotton was subject to 18pc tax while the imported cotton was provided expensive dollars and tax free import, it regretted.

The meeting said that growers of Nara and Dadu canals were concerned about water availability in coming days for different reasons. Nara Canal was supposed to remain closed from Jan 6 to 21 for annual maintenance but this year water in the canal was reduced 25 days before the closure, resulting in severe shortage in already water-deficient tail-end areas, it said.

There were areas in Nara Canal command where water stopped 15-20 days before the closure, prompting growers to call for reducing duration of annual closure for canals and supply of water from Jan 15, it said.

If the canal was opened on Jan 15, tail-end areas would get water after seven days due to water travel time. Since these areas did not have underground water, crops having no water for over 30 days would survive with difficulty, it said.

The meeting said that Dadu Canal having command area of 500,000 acres was unable to carry water as per allocations due to rising silt on the right side of the Indus River upstream of Sukkur Barrage and therefore it was deficient this year.

The canal required urgent correction otherwise most of the command area would face shortage. The SAB, therefore, called for de-silting of canals while urging irrigation department to share its programme with stakeholders for transparency, said the meeting.

Published in Dawn, January 6th, 2025