Farmer Syed Mahmood Ai Shah hails from the Sohawa area of ​​Jhelum district. He has cultivated wheat on 12 acres in his agricultural farm. Due to the lack of rain for the past three months, 50 percent of his crop has been destroyed, and what is left will also be badly affected if there is no rain in the next few days.

Syed Mahmood said: “I have never seen such a drought in my life. This is the first time the wheat crop has turned from green to yellow and dried up after producing small stalks. Experts say that this is climate change, but farmers have neither been informed about it nor prepared about what to do if the rains do not come on time. Syed Mahmood Shah said that he is probably the only farmer in this area who has built a small dam on his own and stored water, which saved the crop planted on his five acres, otherwise the entire crop would have been ruined.

He said ‘If the government provides facilities to farmers in rainy areas to build small dams, then only in this way can the negative effects of climate change on crops be reduced.

Eighth largest country in wheat production, but 56th in per-hectare production

Pakistan is the eighth largest country in the world in terms of wheat production, but if we talk about production per hectare, then Pakistan is 56th in the world. Pakistan has achieved significant improvement in wheat production in the last 30 years. In 1990, wheat production in Pakistan was 14.4 million tons, which increased to 25 million tons in 2011.

Thus, in just 20 years, wheat production in Pakistan has increased by 75 percent, but this ratio of increase in production could not be maintained in the subsequent years, and by 2021, wheat production increased by 10 percent to 35 million tons, which is also largely due to climate change.

According to the Economic Survey of Pakistan, the share of Pakistan’s agricultural sector in Pakistan’s gross national product is 22.9 percent, while 37.4 percent of jobs are owed to this sector. Punjab and Sindh account for 90 percent of Pakistan’s total wheat production. Pakistan’s total wheat consumption is 32 million tons, while production ranges between 25 million and 28 million tons. The remaining shortfall is met by wheat imports. Pakistan’s wheat import bill will increase due to the lack of rains this year.

Not only rain fed areas but also canal areas are affected, wheat production

Dr. Maqsood Qamar is the Principal of Scientific Officer at the National Agricultural Research Centre (NARC) and is also the Vet Program Leader. He told the media that the last rain in Islamabad was on October 6 last year and since then there has been a continuous drought.

According to Dr. Maqsood Qamar: ‘The situation is almost the same in the rest of the rain-fed area, which has had the most severe impact on the wheat crop. The wheat crop was doing well till November 15, but after that, due to lack of rains, the crop started to deteriorate and at present, the situation is that 70 percent of its generation has been affected due to lack of rains and lack of proper moisture.

‘Its secondary branches have not emerged and the single branch that has emerged has also sprouted a stalk, on which there will be fewer grains and those too will be very small. This can be estimated as to how worrying the situation of wheat in the rain-fed area. He said that ‘20 to 25 percent of the area under wheat cultivation in Pakistan is rain-fed, but its share in the total wheat production is 10 percent. Due to the lack of rain, not only the rain-fed area will be affected, but also the high temperature in the canal areas will affect the production of wheat there.

“This year, wheat has been cultivated in a small area in Pakistan, an example of which is that there used to be lines of people buying certified seeds from NARC, but this time there was no line, no recommendation, rather we kept begging the farmers to take the seeds, we will also pay the transport costs, yet our seeds were left and not sold.”

Why was wheat cultivated less this year?

Mian Umair Masood is the president of the Central Farmers’ Union. He told that ‘wheat farmers suffered a loss of Rs 1,000 billion last year because there was no one to buy their wheat. Due to the lack of rain this year, the wheat crop in the rain-fed areas has been destroyed and the plains are also severely affected.’

According to Umair Masood: ‘Wheat cultivation has already decreased by 30 percent and if the factor of lack of rain is also included in it, this year’s wheat production will be 50 percent less than last year. This is the practical situation that Kisan Ittehad is presenting, while on the other hand, government officials are presenting misleading statistics to the government to save their jobs and are saying that they have achieved 98 percent of the wheat cultivation, as proof of which they are saying that 50 percent more fertilizer has been sold this year, although according to our information, there is a surplus of fertilizer in the factories and buyers are not being found.

Also read This:

European Union organized 6th a vibrant “Euro Village” for the residents of the Twin Cities.

He said that ‘Kisan Ittehad, looking at the current situation, feels that a severe wheat crisis is coming in Pakistan. The government has already made PASCO ineffective at the behest of the IMF. This year, it is not buying wheat either, while the government has reserves of 1.1 million tons, which is much less than the market requirement.

He said that the loss suffered by the farmers in the wheat crop last year due to government policies and the lack of rains this year will now affect the Khareef crops as well because the farmers no longer have the required resources to cultivate them.

Dr. Muhammad Asif, Deputy Food Security Commissioner of the Ministry of National Food Security and Research, said that our ministry is obtaining data from the provinces, PASCO, and SUPARCO on how much damage has been caused or is likely to be caused to the wheat crop due to the lack of rains.

He said: “We do not have any such data in this regard yet, based on which we can issue any statement, however, the general situation is pointing towards drought.”