Daily Times

The strategic wheat stocks of the country during current week recorded over 6.445 million tons, which were sufficient to fulfill the domestic requirements as well as keeping the demand and supply smooth, besides ensuring price stability of the commodity in local markets.

The total availability of the grains during the period under review were registered over 9.250 million tons as so far the government had released about 4.204 million tons to local flour mills in order to provide wheat flour and its other by products in local markets on affordable rates, said Food Security Commissioner in the Ministry of National Food Security and Research Imtiaz Ali Gopang.

Talking to APP here on Wednesday, he said that local carry forward stocks of grains during current week recorded at 1,831,019 metric tons, adding that over 6,614,103 metric tons of wheat procured during last season to maintain the strategic reserves in the country.

Meanwhile, the government had also imported about 805,444 metric tons of wheat in order to bridge the shortfall and ensure sufficient supply of the commodity during the season to provide wheat and its by products on sustainable rates for local consumptions, he added.

He said that private sector had also procured over 3.837 million tons of wheat and out of the procured commodity about 2.868 million tons grinded and about 969,076 metric tons of wheat available in private stocks.

The Food Security Commissioner further informed that crop sowing said that wheat sowing for crop season 2023-24 was in full swing and government was taking all possible measures to enhance area under crop production in order to achieve the wheat production targets.

He said that wheat sowing in Punjab Province has been completed over 13.9 percent area as the crop cultivation witnessed about 0.1 percent increase against the cultivation during the corresponding period of last year.

By the first week of current month (November), wheat crop sowing completed over 2, 257 thousand acres as against the set targets of 16, 220 thousand acres fixed for crop season 2022-23.

According to data provided by the crop reporting department of Punjab, the wheat sowing was gaining momentum in rain-fed areas of North Punjab due to timely rains and favorable weather conditions as wheat sowing was achieved by 12.1 percent and in South Punjab it was completed over 16.6 percent as against the set targets.

Meanwhile, wheat sowing targets in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa was achieved by 15.71 % as the crop sowing completed over 141,400 hectares as against the set targets of 900,000 hectares.