Wheat output to surpass 27m tons targets during current season

ISLAMABAD (APP): Wheat output in the country is likely to surpass 27 million tons mark during current season, which would be sufficient to fulfill the domestic requirements of staple food as well as for keeping strategic reserves to meet the future needs.

The estimated output of grains during the season would not only help to keep the domestic demand and supply at smooth, it would also help reduce the reliance on the imported wheat and save precious foreign exchange.

The Provincial Crop Reporting Services have so far reported healthy crop position across the wheat producing areas in the country, revealing that set targets for the current season would be met.

“It was expected that surplus output of wheat would be achieved during the coming harvesting season, if the other condition (weather) remained same,” said Food Security Commissioner in Ministry of National Food Security and Research Dr Imtiaz Ahmad Gopang.

Talking to APP, he said that wheat production targets for current season were fixed at 27 million tons as against the 25.249 million tons of the total output of last season, adding that last year wheat crop was affected due to torrential rains during the crop harvesting time.

He informed that Provincial Crop Reporting Services from all four provinces have reported that wheat crop was on positive trajectory as not any pest or other disease attack reported.

However, he said that meteorological office had forecast above normal rains in some areas of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) during the end of March, 2021 as wheat production targets in the province was fixed at 1.7 million tons.

The wheat output in Punjab was fixed at 20 million tons, Sindh 4 million tons and Balochistan was assigned to produce about 1.3 million tons of the grains during current Rabi season to tackle with the local consumptions.

He informed that per-capita wheat consumption in the country was estimated at 115 kg  per annum, adding that strategies were formulated to adjust accommodating average 500,000 to 600,000  additional population every year.

It is worth mentioning here that wheat crop during Rabi 2020-21 were cultivated over 9.120 million hectares as against 9.807 million hectares of last year.

The wheat sowing had registered 3.56 percent increase as compared the cultivation of same period of last year and sowing targets were achieved by 99.023 percent.

The Crop sowing in Punjab recorded 2.6 percent growth, Sindh 2 percent, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) and Balochsitan 1 percent respectively.