Wheat procurement off to a slow start

LAHORE: Punjab Food Department, the biggest buyer of grains in the country, has launched the 2022 wheat procurement drive earlier than usual due to forced maturity of the crop in most areas on the back of an unexpected heat wave.

Till April 6, 2022, the department only managed to procure 82,182 tonnes of wheat. However, the department did succeed in distributing gunny bags for purchase of 419,228 tonnes wheat till now.

Wheat procurement is only going on in three divisions including Multan, DG Khan and Bahawalpur.

Unlike previous years, the provincial government took a bold decision to enter in the market earlier. For the last many years, the Food Department used to launch procurement in third week of April. However, this year the process of buying wheat at official godowns was initiated in the first week of the month. Still a week later than what the farmers were demanding due to early maturity of crop.

Growers are unhappy with the slow pace of procurement. Wheat harvesting was kick-started in the southern parts of the province in last week of March.

Owing to forced maturity and a long dry spell and hot weather lasting for over three weeks, there were ideal conditions for harvesting and threshing the crop. As per an estimate, around 25 percent crop has been harvested in the south.

The department failed to take advantage of early harvest in the true sense, giving unwarranted advantage to private buyers vying in the open market. “It will not only cost farmers due to low returns, but dent the department’s efforts of procuring wheat as per target,” said Haji Ramzan of Kissan Board Pakistan (KBP).

He asked the authorities to begin aggressive procurement of wheat in addition to allowing private sector to purchase wheat. A healthy competition would help a lot in ensuring due returns to farmers, he observed.

Wheat rates are still lucrative for the farmers. However, KBP spokesperson feared that the price would crash anytime in a week or so if aggressive buying was not started by the Food Department.

According to a progressive flour miller, new wheat for Lahore was being bought at Rs2,275/40kg against official price of Rs2,200/40kg.

He lamented that wheat buying curbs on the private sector would prove to be counterproductive as it would be against the interest of farmers. Additionally, he added, private wheat was essential for meeting flour demand till September/October.

It may be noted that last week, Punjab announced to purchase 3.5 million metric tonnes of wheat in the province at the rate of Rs2,200/40kg.

Sharing details of the target for wheat purchase in the province, outgoing CM Usman Buzdar said that Punjab cabinet has approved the purchase target and it could be further increased if needed.

“Effective measures will be taken to counter illegal movement of wheat from the province,” he said, and added that an eight-member team has been constituted for the purchase of wheat.

He said that provincial, divisional, district and tehsil level committees have been formed for monitoring procurement.