HYDERABAD, March 28: Sindh Food and Agriculture Minister Arif Mustafa Jatoi has stressed the need for changing crop pattern in the water deficient province of the country. He was speaking at the field day on sunflower organized by the Sindh Abadgar Board in a village about 45 kilometres from here on Saturday.

Mr Jatoi said cultivation of sunflower, a high value and low delta crop would not only improve economic condition of the growers but also help in minimizing the import bill of Rs41 billion per annum on edible oil.

He held out an assurance that the government would provide all possible incentives in changing crop pattern. The minister said companies would be asked to ensure timely availability of seeds to growers at fair price and marketing of their produce.

He conceded that the agriculture sector, which was the mainstay of the economy and accounted for 25 per cent of GDP, had unfortunately been neglected by the successive governments.

He said sustainable development of agriculture was on the priority list of the government. The minister held out an assurance that all possible help would be provided to growers.

Referring to non-payment of growers' outstanding dues by the sugar mills, he said he would take up the matter with the authorities concerned to resolve the problem.

Responding to a question about the auction of market committees, Mr Jatoi said, the government had failed to run the same and the only option was to auction them to make them self- sufficient.

"By auctioning the committees, 50 per cent more revenue has been generated" he claimed. He said the establishment of illegal check posts by the contractors would not be tolerated and warned that if any contractor established such posts, an FIR would be registered against him and his contract would be cancelled.

Speaking about the lining of watercourses, he said, that a scheme was in the pipeline and soon work on the project would be started. Sindh Abadgar Board President Majeed Nizamani said the late crushing and negative attitude of the sugar mill owners had compelled the growers to change the crop pattern and the growers of sugar cane areas had brought 180,000 acres under sunflowers as compared to last year's 72,000 acres.

He warned if sugar mills did not change their attitude, the growers would continue to shift to other crops and their mills would turn into sick industry. Mr Nizamani said more often than not, it had been claimed that there was a crises in sugar industry and most of the sugar mills run in losses.

The ground realities, he said, were that one mill which had failed to pay grower's dues had purchased the Fauji Sugar Mills Tando Mohammad Khan and another mill at Khoski.

Similarly, a new mill with enormous crushing capacity is being established in lower Punjab on the boarder of Sindh. He posed a question that if the industry was in crises then why such a huge investment was made in the sector.

He said growers were not against the sugar industry and appealed to the federal government to provide all facilities to them as enjoyed by the sugar producing and exporting countries of the world.

Referring to inordinate increase in the prices of inputs particularly of fertilizer, he said, the profits of the fertilizer companies could be judged from their annual balance sheet showing profits of billions of rupees.

Similarly, he said, the PSO had announced huge profits but it did not want to share the profit with the growers. He demanded that the prices of fertilizer should not be increased from sowing to harvesting period of the crops of the year.