ISLAMABAD: Ministry of National Food Security and Research in collaboration with provincial governments would provide over 3.183 million bags of certified wheat seeds to the farmers of floods affected areas to ensure maximum sowing of major cash crop of the season to revive the agriculture and avert the impact of catastrophe in the country.
The Ministry will start distribution of free wheat seeds to the farmers of flood-hit areas from November 10 in order to ensure maximum sowing of the crop to revive agriculture sector in these areas.
In this regard a digital application has been developed to deliver and distribute seeds among the flood-hit farmers in a transparent and efficient manner, an official in the Ministry of National Food Security and Research told while talking to APP here Wednesday.
Each seed bag would comprise of 50 kg of different approved verities while the cost of the scheme amounts to Rs17.16 billion. “The scheme covers about 78 percent areas affected due to floods and torrential rains during current moon soon season”, he said.
The official said that the cost of the scheme would be shared by the federal and provincial governments aiming to ensuring availability of all agricultural inputs including seeds to growers of these areas to revive and restore of agriculture sector for minimizing the impact of havoc created by the catastrophe.
He further apprised that about 4.04 million acres of agriculture land in Punjab, Sindh, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Balochistan provinces were affected due to floods, adding that a committee was also formed to review the situation and evolve mechanism to ensure all possible incentives for the restoration of agriculture and livestock sector in these areas.
Out of the total allocated seed bags, about 50,000 bags would be distributed among the affected farmers of Punjab Province, he said adding that 2.44 million bags would be provided to growers from the affected areas of Sindh.
Over 10,000 wheat seed bags will be provided to the farmers belonging to affected areas of KP, whereas 690,000 seed bags would be delivered to farmers of Balochistan province, he added.
It is pertinent to mention here that Federal Committee on Agriculture had set a target to cultivate wheat crop over 9.250 million hectares during current Rabi season in order to produce about 28.370 million tons of wheat to fulfill the local requirements as well as for exporting.
