Wheat crop cultivated over 8.011 mn hectares during current season

December 18, 2018: Wheat crop has been cultivated over 8.011 million hectares of land across the crop producing areas of the country as against set targets of 8.833 million hectares for current Rabi season to fulfill the domestic requirements as well as for exporting.

During the corresponding period of last sowing season, the crop cultivation was recorded at 8.839 million hectares, Food Security Commissioner in the Ministry of National Food Security and Research Dr. Imtiaz Ahmad Gopang said.

Wheat cultivation was almost up to the set marks but due to delay in sugarcane crushing and late irrigation of rice crop had resulted in slight reduction in area under wheat in Sindh and Balochistan provinces, he said.

The other reasons behind the reduction in wheat crop sowing was also attributed with the shortage of water for irrigation which was forecast by 35 percent during the season, however with the arrival of first spell of rains the situation was improved and wheat sowing in rain fed areas got momentum, he remarked.

However, he said the area under wheat cultivation in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province had witnessed 2 percent increase, adding that area under crop is expected to further increase as the crop sowing would remain continued till the last of current month.

The Food Security Commissioner further informed that crop sowing had been completed over 90.7 percent areas by mid of December as compared the same period of last year.

Meanwhile, he said Punjab had achieved the sowing targets by 95 percent, Sindh by 73, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa 94 and Balochistan 71 respectively.

The wheat had been cultivated over 6.155 million hectares, Sindh 0.845 million hectares, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa 0.725 million hectares and in Balochistan it had been cultivated over 0.286 million hectares of land, he added.

Dr. Imtiaz said healthy wheat crop output was expected during current season, adding that expected rains by the month of January, 2019 would bring multi pull impact on the wheat plant and help in its healthy growth to boost productivity.

(APP)