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ISLAMABAD: The PTI-led federal government has revised the minimum support price (MSP) of wheat at Rs1,800 per 40 kilogrammes as an incentive to the farmers to grow wheat on more area in coming years.
Addressing a press conference, Minister for National Food Security and Research Syed Fakhr Imam said the decision to increase the rate by Rs150 per 40 kilogrammes was taken in a high-level meeting chaired by Prime Minister Imran Khan.
The government also decided to import three million tonnes of wheat in the next one year to ensure there was no shortage of the commodity. “We have finalised the estimates of the import and are managing the situation in a coordinated way so that consumers face no shortage of wheat at any time,” Fakhr Imam said.
The food security minister said this year wheat production was expected to be 26.2 million tonnes. “Crop estimates showed that Punjab would grow 19.08 million tonnes, Sindh 4.02 million tonnes and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Balochistan’s combined production would be 9.2 million tonnes,” he added.
Fakhar Imran has been advocating for the increase in the wheat support price but other ministers, particularly those from the urban areas, were opposing the proposal saying that it would spur inflation.
“The increase in minimum support price will benefit the local farmers, who are playing critical role in the provision of food grains to a large population of the country, besides providing raw material for industrial sector and employing skilled and sami-skilled workforce,” the minister said.
A reserve of 300,000 tons of wheat has already been ensured, for which the Trading Corporation of Pakistan issued tenders in August. With this, the country will have in its stock 30 million tons of wheat including 1 million tons as strategic reserve.
