Targets set for kharif crops.

Byline: Amin Ahmed

ISLAMABAD -- The Federal CommAittee on Agriculture (FCA) on WednAesday set production targets for major crops such as sugarcane, rice and cotton and other crops for the kharif season in 2020-21.

The high-powered committee oversees strategic measures for ensuring food security in the country.

The committee set a production target of 69,801.5 thousand tonnes of sugarcane to be produced over an area of 1,180.6 thousand hectares. The target for rice, another cash crop of the kharif season, has been set at 7,990 thousand tonnes over an area of 2,957.0 thousand hectares, while the target for cotton was fixed at 10.8 million bales from 2,310 thousand hectares.

The target for maize has been set at 5,012 thousand tonnes over an area of 1,338.9 thousand hectares. The target for mash is 605.9 thousand tonnes and chillies 2,481 thousand tonnes.

The targets have been set keeping in view the estimated water availability for irrigation and agricultural inputs. The committee was informed that the water availability in canal heads for 2020 will remain at 71.153m acres feet (MAF) compared to 65.233MAF last year. Presently, all provinces were getting satisfactory water supply from the irrigation system.

The committee was also informed regarding the higher-than-needed availability of rice and maize seeds at 168.93pc and 53.196pc respectively.

Encouraged by local production and available stocks, the FCA was informed that the urea and DAP supply during the kharif season will be enough to meet the projected demand.

The FCA appreciated the positive impact of the fertiliser subsidy scheme which contributed to high yields and noted that the supply of urea and DAP fertilisers was satisfactory during the 2019-20 rabi season.

A State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) official informed the meeting that the allocations for institutional credit to agriculture had substantially increased to Rs1.350 trillion for 2019-20 and disbursements by the month of March were at Rs912.2 billion - nearly 67.7pc of the overall annual target of Rs1.350tr, up 13.3pc from the Rs804.4bn last year.

The Pakistan Meteorological DeparAtment informed the FCA meeting that the overall normal to slightly above normal rainfalls are...

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