Agriculture Committee Fixes Crop Production Target for Rabi Season FY25

Federal Committee on Agriculture (FCA) has fixed crop production targets for Rabi 2024-25. FCA’s meeting for Rabi Season (2024-25) has been held under the Chairmanship of Rana Tanveer Hussain, Federal Minister for National Food Security & Research at Community Centre of NARC, Chak Shahzad, Islamabad. The Committee reviewed the performance of the Kharif Crops (2024-25) and Production Plan for Rabi Crops (2024-25). The Committee also discussed the situation of inputs for Rabi Crops (2024-25). The Committee was informed that Sugarcane production for 2024-25 is provisionally estimated at 85.5 million tons from an area of 1.193 million hectares showing an increase of 4.3 percent and 11.5 percent in area and production respectively over the targets fixed by the FCA. Rice production for 2024-25 is estimated at 9.079 million tons from an area of 3.630 million hectares showing an increase of 18.5 percent in area 4.0 percent in production over the targets fixed by the FCA. Mash for 2024-25 is estimated at 5.77 thousand tons from an area of 7.48 thousand hectares showing an increase of 6.6 percent and 3.3 percent in area and production respectively over the last year. The Committee has fixed the crop’s production targets for Rabi 2024-25. Keeping in view last year’s achievement (Area 9.74 million hectares; Production 31.81 million tons), and the national requirement for food year 2025-26 (33.58 million tons), the Federal Government proposed the Wheat production target of 33.58 million tons from the target area of 10.368 million hectares to attain self-sufficiency. However, the provinces came up with lower targets of production. According to provincial governments’ proposals, the target area for wheat will be 9.263 million hectares with production of 27.92 million tons. The FCA urged the provincial governments to make utmost efforts to achieve the sowing and production targets proposed by the Federal Government to meet the wheat consumption requirements next year. Whereas, the production targets for Gram, Potato, Onion Tomato, and Chillies are fixed at 419.4, 6829.4, 2554.8, 658.7, and 56.8 thousand tons respectively. The seed availability for Rabi Crops was also discussed in the house and DG, FSC&RD informed that availability of certified seed for the Rabi, 2024-25 will remain satisfactory. For Rabi 2024-25, the IRSA Advisory Committee has anticipated a shortage of water to the extent of about 16% for Punjab & Sindh during the Rabi season. Provinces are allocated 31.136 MAF of water subject to review in the 1st week of November, 2024. Meteorological Department informed that overall, normal to below normal precipitation is expected in most parts of the country, particularly in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, upper/central Punjab, Gilgit Baltistan, Kashmir and upper/central parts of Baluchistan. However, slightly above normal rains are expected in Sindh, southern parts of Punjab and Baluchistan. However, near-to-normal rains are expected in October and December in the country. The house was informed that to stabilize the food security situation in the country, the Government is making utmost arrangements to facilitate the farming community by providing inputs at affordable prices on one hand and taking steps to ensure better prices of their produce to bridge the gap between the cost of production and output price in favor of farmers In pursuance of the government’s agenda for the promotion of the agriculture sector, to increase the flow of credit to the agriculture sector, State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) allocated an indicative agricultural credit disbursement target of Rs. 2,250 billion for FY 2024 which was 26.7 percent higher than preceding year’s disbursement of Rs. 1,776 billion. Currently, 47 formal financial institutions are providing agriculture loans to the farming community, which include 5 major commercial banks, 13 medium sized domestic private banks, 6 Islamic banks, 02 specialized banks (ZTBL & PPCBL), 11 microfinance banks, and 10 Microfinance Institutions/Rural Support Programs (MFIs/RSPs). During FY24, the agricultural lending institutions disbursed Rs. 2,216 billion, which was 98.5 percent of the overall annual target of Rs. 2,250 billion and 24.8 percent higher than Rs. 1,776 billion disbursed during the corresponding period last year. The house was also informed that the supply of Urea and DAP is expected to remain stable during the upcoming Rabi 2024 25 (November-December 2024). The meeting had participants from Provincial Agriculture Departments, State Bank of Pakistan, ZTBL, National Fertilizer Development Center (NFDC), Pakistan Meteorological Department, Indus River System Authority and senior officers of the M/o National Food Security & Research, Chairman PARC and heads of Ministry’s attached departments viz., Agriculture Policy Institute, Federal Seed Certification & Registration Department, Pakistan Oilseed Department, Department of Plant Protection, Federal Water Management Cell and Pakistan Agricultural Storage and Services Corporation (PASSCO).