LAHORE: Representatives of various farmer organisations have threatened to launch a tractor march on the federal and Punjab capitals on March 31 if their demands for support price of wheat, power tariff for tube wells and fertilizer rates are not accepted.

The threat was announced at a joint press conference addressed by Khalid Mahmood Khokhar, president of small landholders’ body Pakistan Kissan Ittehad; Afaq Tiwana of the Farmers Associate Pakistan, which represent large landholders, Punjab Water Council Convener Farooq Bajwa and others here on Tuesday.

Demanding Rs2,000 per 40kg as the support price for wheat ready to be harvested after a month, they cautioned that the lower rates would encourage smuggling of the grain.

The price difference between Sindh (Rs2,000/40kg) and Punjab (Rs1,650/40kg) would also promote inter-province smuggling.

Mr Khokhar said the protesting farmers would not return until acceptance of their demands as they had been asked to carry roasted grams, dates, etc as food during the march.

He lamented that the sector was being ignored by the government for the decisions taken in a meeting between Prime Minister Imran Khan and a growers’ delegation in August last year was not implemented. He regretted that despite having an agriculture-based economy, the country was importing agriculture products worth $8bn.

Mr Tiwana said the growers would not allow the authorities to forcibly collect their wheat through the nefarious Section-144 and would rather sell their crop in the open market at the market rate. He also announced moving a court of law against the likely imposition of Section-144 as under the law, the government could ban inter-province but not inter-district movement of wheat. He said the growers irrigating their fields through tube wells had also decided to stop payment of their power bills being exorbitant as compared to what was the electricity cost a couple of months ago.

Mr Bajwa wondered that the government was importing wheat at a time when local harvesting of the crop was just weeks away. He also claimed that the wheat being imported from France and Russia was around three years old (or at least not fresh) for the harvesting season in these countries would set in August.

Besides being costlier, the imported grain is also of low quality containing 9.5pc protein against more than 11pc protein in the local wheat, he claimed.

Published in Dawn, March 17th, 2021