Daily Times

An area of 500,000 acres would be brought under wheat cultivation in the district this year as wheat sowing process has been started.

This was disclosed at a meeting of District Advisory Committee and District Task Force held here on Sunday with Additional Deputy Commissioner Headquarters Arshad Ahmed Wattoo in the chair. The meeting was attended by Deputy Director of Agriculture Jafar Imran and other departments concerned and farmers.

Deputy Director Agriculture Imran Jafar informed the meeting that a target of wheat sowing had been set at 500,000 acres across the district. He said the Punjab government was running many training programmes for farmers for better yield while competitions were also being held among farmers to grow more wheat, oil seeds and sugarcane crops. The agriculture department was going to start an awareness programme for farmers titled ‘smart farming’ from November 1, the schedule of which had been issued, he added.

He further said that as of now the citrus crop was also good, if there were rains on time and the weather was favorable, bumper crop of citrus was expected this year.

Jafar Imran said that a full campaign was going on to make farmers aware of smog, adding that cases had so far been got registered against three farmers for burning crop residues, while a fine of Rs 200,000 had also been imposed on violators.