Daily Times

Abundant wheat stocks of 4.336 million tons are available to cater domestic requirements, besides maintaining smooth demand, supply in local markets, and ensuring provision of flour and other by-products at sustainable rates across the country.

Domestic wheat stocks during the first week of last year (2021) were recorded at about 3.188 million tons with carry forward stocks of 731,033 metric tons, said Food Security Commissioner Dr Imtiaz Ali Gopang.

Talking to APP on Monday he said that public stock was sufficient to cater the civic requirement of 108 releasing days or 4.34 months up to May 20, 2022.

He said that by January 10, 2022, about 2,860,081 metric tons of wheat has been released to flour mills to ensure the supply of flour at sustainable rates in local markets.

The Food Security Commissioner further informed that Punjab Province and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa had started their releases from September 24, 2021, whereas Sindh Province started its releases for flour mills from October 17, 2021.

Meanwhile, 1,356,617 metric tons of imported wheat has also arrived, which would help in augmenting the local wheat stocks and discourage any possibility of hoarding and profiteering in the country, he added.

Besides, he said that wheat sowing during the current season had also witnessed growth as the government announced minimum support price well in time, adding that sowing targets set for the season were achieved by 97pc.

Out of the set target of 23.327 million acres, the wheat sowing has been completed over 22.766 million, which was recorded at 22.716 million acres during the same period last year.

He informed that Punjab Province had voluntarily enhanced its target to 16.779 million acres from the assigned sowing target of 16.210 mill acres, adding that with this increase, the overall target of wheat sowing has been enhanced to 23.327 million acres from the previous target of 22.758 million acres as was fixed during the meeting of the federal committee on agriculture.

According to Provincial Crop Reporting Services, wheat sowing was still in progress in many rain-fed areas, and it was expected to further strengthen the overall sowing figures, adding that Punjab has completed crop cultivation over 100pc area set for the current season.

However, other provinces including Sindh had completed wheat cultivation over 97.81pc, KP 87.01pc, and Balochistan over 84.77pc.