May 19, 2011

Indian wheat procurement reaches full swing

India's wheat procurement campaign across the country for the year 2011-12 was in full swing as the provincial food departments and official grains procurement agency PASSCO has so far purchased about 3.828 million tonnes of wheat from growers.

An official in the Ministry of Food and Agriculture (MinFA) said on Tuesday (May 17) that the government would procure about 6.57 million tonnes of wheat to fulfill domestic requirements and for keeping the strategic food reserves in the country.

In Punjab, about 2.16 million tonnes of the commodity have been procured so far against the set targets of four million tonnes, he added. He informed that the Sindh province has procured about 1.17 million tonnes as against its set procurement targets of 1.3 million tonnes for the year 2011-12.

Meanwhile, he said that procurement campaign was also resumed in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) and Balochistan as the provinces have so far purchased about 0.38 million tonnes and 0.054 million tonnes of wheat respectively from the growers on official fixed rates of INR950 (US$21.14) per 40kg.

The official further said that Pakistan Agriculture Storage and Services Corporation (PASSCO) procured about 0.548 million tonnes of the commodity as against the set targets of 1.3 million tonnes. PASSCO has been given the task to procure 1.3 million tonnes of the commodity adding that it would procure 1.26 million tonnes from Punjab and 0.04 million tonnes from Sindh, he added.

The PASSCO has started the wheat procurement in Punjab where it has procured about 0.233 million tonnes of wheat from its 176 procurement centers across the province, he added. The official further informed that PASSCO has established 11 procurement centers in Sindh and 14 centers in Baluchistan for procuring the commodity.

This year's wheat crop has been sown in over 8.8 million hectares of land in the country to fulfill the domestic consumption which was 3.5% less as compared to last year's sowing.