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Sunflower growers reject MINFA’s support price |
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| The sunflower growers rejected the government’s support price of Rs 1,600 per maund claiming that the cost of production is much higher and they would suffer losses |
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It is astonishing that the Ministry of Food and Agriculture (MINFA) is not aware of the situation and decided to set the current sunflower price at the rate which was in 2007,” Agri Forum chief Ibrahim Mughal said Tuesday.
He said during past three years, the cost of production including price of seed, fertiliser and other inputs have increased by around 20 percent.
“How can a sunflower farmer afford such cost, as growers and small farmers are hesitating to cultivate the sunflower crop because of poor supporting price of their crop and this area is also needs immediate attention of the concerned authorities,” he said.
“The demand of the sunflower growers is Rs 2,000 per maund and if this demand was not met the sowing of crop will be affected in Punjab and Sindh cultivating areas,” he added.
Solvent Extractors Association of Pakistan also supported the sunflower growers in the country and demanded for maximum support price to sunflower farmers in order to increase yield during the season.
A senior member of the association, Shahzad Ali Khan said sunflower, a non-traditional oilseed has the potential to bridge the gap that exists between the domestic demand and supply due to its high oil and protein contents.
He said sunflower seeds contain about 42 percent high quality edible oil and this crop is grown on an area of over 256,000 hectares in Pakistan with a production of over 359,000 tonnes sunflower seed and 1,410kg per hectare yield.
This is low as compared to major sunflower growing countries like China, United States and Argentina but our per acre production is better than the developing countries, he said.
He said farmers could enhance their crop double-fold this year if they are provided appropriate support as well as sufficient support price.
He said farmers get better yield from vertical and horizontal growth in rain-fed areas and irrigated lands in Sindh and Punjab.
He said we fulfil our 74 percent needs from seed imports while around 26 percent requirement of seed is fulfilled from local yield.
We believe there will be an increase in import orders as we are expecting lesser yield of cottonseed this year, which is a major source of edible oil production, he said adding that extraction of oil from 100 kilogrammes of cottonseed was around 40 kilogrammes.
The country consumes around 1.9 million tonnes edible oil every year out of which 0.59 million tonnes is contributed by the local growers while the remaining is imported to bridge the demand and supply gap.
Substantial amount of our valued foreign exchange is spent on importing edible oil, which not only brings hardship for the people but also burdens the national economy.
According to an official the Ministry of Food and Agriculture, the government was spending on sunflower research and motivating the farmers’ community to make the country self-sufficient in edible oil through increase in cultivation of this crop.
Pakistan is producing about one-third of its edible oil requirements and the rest is met through import at a cost of billions of rupees each year.
Around 197 million tonnes of edible oil at a cost of Rs 109 billion was imported during 2009, while oil seeds costing Rs 27 billion were also imported during the same period. |
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