October 13, 2023 (MLN): The caretaker government has set targets for the harvest of some of its major crops for the fiscal year 2023-24, with a production target of 32.12 million mt of Wheat, 11.5 million bales of Cotton, and 8.64 million mt of Rice.
To note, as per the forecast of the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA), Pakistan's rice output is expected at around 9 million tons in FY24,
Moreover, USDA forecasted a production of 28 million tonnes of wheat, significantly higher than last year's production and exceeding the average for the country over the last 5 years (2018-2022).
In addition to this, the projected production of corn (maize) is 10.5m tonnes, 6.5m bales of cotton, 7.8m tonnes of sugar, and 540,000 tonnes of rapeseed (canola) in 2023/24.
These offer welcome relief for Pakistani farmers who suffered devastating losses in the epic floods 2022.
Furthermore, India's ban on non-basmati rice exports will likely help Pakistani exporters fetch higher prices on the world market.
Meanwhile, the government has assigned an annual agriculture credit disbursement target of Rs2.25 trillion to the financial institutions for FY24 to cater to the agriculture credit demand in the country.
It is worth noting that in the previous year, FY23, the government disbursed a total of Rs1.776tr.
