HYDERABAD, Sept 15: Sindh Agriculture Forum president Noor Ahmad Nizamani has expressed apprehension that the grain output in Sindh will be quite low this year.

Talking to a group of farmers in the Bakhsho village in Badin on Wednesday, he said rice crop had been cultivated on 50 per cent less area because of acute shortage of water, mismanagement of the irrigation department, non-availability of quality seed and some other factors.

Mr Nizamani said the Rice Research Institute in Dokri had failed to provide quality seed. However, he said the Nuclear Institute of Agriculture, Tandojam, had introduced high-yielding rice and wheat varieties.

He urged farmers to plan for coming wheat season. He pointed out that the government was importing one million tons of wheat this year to meet the shortage. Mr Nizamani said the Sindh ministry of agriculture should direct the directorate general, agriculture engineering, to provide land-levelling equipment to farmers at reduced rates and ensure supply of quality wheat seed.

He said more than one-third of wheat crop grown in Sindh contained weeds. He demanded that the agriculture department should supply seed graders to every taluka so that farmers could clean their stored wheat seed.

He pointed out that farmers had suffered post harvest loss because they did not have adequate food grain storage facility. He proposed that the government should provide soft loans to farmers for establishing storages.

The forum president regretted that the government-run Sindh Agricultural Supplies Organization, which provided good services to farmers for may years, was disbanded because of mismanagement, mishandling and misappropriation of funds by officials.

RESEARCH: The vice-chancellor of the University of Sindh, Mazharul Haq Siddiqui, has urged industrialists to take advantage of research done by scholars of the university to improve the quality of their product.