Farmers Threaten to Skip Wheat Sowing Without Rs. 5,000 Support Price

Pakistan Kissan Ittehad President Khalid Khokhar has called for a wheat support price of Rs. 5,000 per 40 kilograms, threatening that farmers may forgo sowing the crop next season if the government delays announcing a crop policy. At a press conference, Khokhar stated that wheat sowing was imminent, but the government had yet to declare its policy for the crop.

Farmers are grappling with the inability to afford balanced fertilizer use, as they are not yet recouping their production costs. DAP consumption has declined from 2.39 million tonnes to 1.25 million tonnes. Khokhar suggested that granting farmers the international market price for wheat would lead to record production, as higher crop prices in previous years contributed to improved yields.

He also noted that sugarcane cultivation had increased by 16 percent to 2.454 million acres, with sugar production expected to rise by 25 percent to 30 percent. Khokhar urged the government to maintain adequate sugar stocks for domestic consumption until November and export any surplus to prevent losses for growers. Failure to export excess sugar could cause sugarcane prices to fall and harm farmers, negatively impacting subsequent crops.

Khokhar emphasized that farmers were not demanding subsidies but rather fair prices for their produce, as escalating input costs and insufficient returns were discouraging young people from entering agriculture. "If the government wants deregulation, it should deregulate the entire sector rather than selectively deregulating sugarcane," he asserted, stressing that food security should remain a top priority for the government.

Mahmoodul Hassan Bukhari, another farmer leader, criticized the government for postponing decisions despite having crop and stock data. He contended that previous delays in exporting surplus sugar had ultimately shifted losses onto farmers and warned that farmers might skip wheat sowing if a policy was not announced promptly.