ISLAMABAD:The government would procure about 6 million tons of wheat during current season in order to fulfill the domestic requirements as well as keeping the strategic reserves, besides keeping demand and supply at smooth level in local markets across the country.
In this regard the Ministry of National Food Security and Research has submitted a summary before Economic Coordination Committee (ECC) of the Cabinet for final approval and the committee would consider it in its next meeting scheduled to be held on March 17 (Thursday), said an official.
Talking to reporter here on Wednesday, he said that the committee would also set procurement targets for Sindh and Balochistan provinces during current season (2022-23), besides making deliberation to ensure provision of minimum support price to achieve better rate of returns for farming communities.
He further informed that provincial governments have also finalized their all arrangements to initiate procurement campaign for current season, adding that the respective governments have also established their procurement centers to facilitate the growers to sell their produces at official fixed rates.
Besides, the Pakistan Agriculture Storage and Services Corporation (PASSCO) has also setup the procurement centers in different areas and distributed areas in zones, he said adding that arrangements for the distribution of gunny bags were also aligned to facilitate the farmers.
Meanwhile, he said that abundant wheat stocks of over 3.036 million tons were available to meet local consumption, adding that available stocks were sufficient to tackle with the needs of 77 days with average consumption of 40,000 tons per-day.
He further informed that local wheat consumption for current season were estimated at 30.97 million tons with an average per-capita consumption of 115 kg per annum.