Wheat crop area decreased by 2.53 percent during 2010-11

The area of wheat crop under cultivation decreased by 2.53 percent during 2010-2011 over the previous year largely due to problems faced by the farmers in terms of disposal of wheat produced in 2009-2010, shifting of area to cotton and sugarcane crops in irrigated tracts, late crushing by sugar mills, and considerable increase in potato crop.This was revealed in a yet to be released report titled Agriculture Statistics of Pakistan (ASP) prepared by the Pakistan Bureau of Statistics for the year 2010-2011, a copy of which is available with Business Recorder.

The report notes that wheat sowing area in 2010-11 declined considerably because farmers were unable to sell their wheat at the support price announced by the government.This resulted in discouraging farmers from sowing wheat and they shifted to other crops, the document reveals.

Farmers in irrigated areas were inclined to bring more area under cotton, sugarcane crops as they did not get the announced support price as well as due to lucrative market prices of cotton and sugarcane.

Late crushing by sugar mills and considerable increase in potato crop were the other main factors for a decrease in sowing area of wheat crop in 2010-2011.However, wheat output showed an increase of 8.16 percent in 2010-2011 as compared to 2009-2010.

According to ASP the production of wheat increased in 2010-2011 because of sowing wheat at an appropriate time, available moisture in Barani tracts, better weather conditions and use of high yielding varieties supported germination.In 2010-2011 wheat was cultivated on 8900.7 thousands hectares area and country produced 25.21 million tons.

In Punjab wheat was cultivated on 6691.0 thousands hectares area and produced 19.041 million tons, in Sindh wheat was cultivated on 1.44 thousand hectares and produced 4.287 million tons, total area of wheat in KPK was 724.5 thousands hectares and produced 1.155 million tons; and Balochistan wheat was cultivated on 340 thousands hectares and produced 0.729 million tons.

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