| Floods cause immense damage to Pakistani agriculture | Send to a friend |
| Wednesday, 25 August 2010 15:39 |
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ISLAMABAD, Massive floods in Pakistan that have killed up to 1,600 people, left 20 million homeless and destroyed crops over an estimated area of more than 1.64 million hectares, farmers and officials said. But some of the concerned government officials say that the exact damage to crops is not to be assessed yet finally because more damages are expected as the flood wave is not over. Agriculture experts and observers estimated that Pakistan would have to import three million cotton bales as the floods have damaged more than two million bales over the cotton crop area of 280,000 hectares. Pakistan, in April, hoped to produce 14 million bales of cotton in the 2010/11 season, compared with about 12.7 million bales the previous financial year 2009/10. "We have carefully estimated that cotton crop of 2 to 2.5 million bales valuing 75 to 80 billion rupees ($882 to $941million) got destroyed. Which will be the most damaging factor to the economy and will also affect the export of textile products," Arif Hussain, an agriculturist from Punjab province told Xinhua on Friday. Mr Hussain was hopeless for any recovery and said, "This target is unachievable now and we shall have to import three million bales to make up for the shortfall." A Pakistani cotton bale weighs 170 kg. Despite being the world’s fourth biggest cotton producer, Pakistan annually imports around 2 million bales to feed its textile industry. Pakistan, a country that is already facing white sugar crises and had imported a total of 525,000 tonnes of sugar during August, will also have to buy another big quantity as the floods had damaged sugar cane crop of over 80,000 hectares and of worth 600 million dollars. Last year, Pakistan could produce little more than three million tonnes of white sugar against an annual demand of 4.2 million tonnes. The next crop, due in November, was expected to produce about 3.8 million tonnes of white sugar before the floods struck. Sources from Pakistan's federal food ministry and farmer association estimated carefully on Friday that the output of refined sugar would fall by 500,000 tonnes in coming season after a splash flood destroyed a big quantity of the crop. Market gurus are expecting that in the months to come the cost of sugar would increase many times around 125 to 130 rupees per kg almost double than that of now. According to the officials at the Ministry of Food, Agriculture and Livestock, the flood caused a huge damage of about $5 billion to the country's major crops and its livestock that has put the agrarian economy and food security in peril. The latest data from the ministry reveals that country lost paddy crop (rice crop) of worth $247 million and the crop of maize of $259 million. Apart from the damage to the major crop, a huge loss of over $518 million was caused to fruits, fodder and vegetables. In addition, flood damaged the wheat stocks of around $200 million across the country, 44,896 tonnes in Punjab, 80, 823 tonnes in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa (KP) got totally damaged whereas 5,41,696 tonnes of wheat in southern province Sindh is feared to have been damaged as the flood is hitting the region. The wheat seed stock with the farmers community had also been washed away by floods and they have no seed for sowing in next season which will create the most desperate condition for the farmers. Hamid Malhi, eminent farmer and chief of Punjab Water Council, demanded the government that they should provide wheat seed, fertilizer, tube-well engines and high speed diesel to the affected farmers of the four provinces free of cost enabling them to get new crops by next season. Flood also caused the quick crises of fresh vegetables and fruit in the country Add this page to your favorite Social Bookmarking websites           |
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