FAZAL SHER

ISLAMABAD: The Federal Committee on Agriculture (FCA) will meet Wednesday (today) to review agriculture performance of Kharif season and fix targets for the Rabi season 2017-18.

An official of the Ministry of National Food Security and Research told Business Recorder that the high-powered meeting would be held under the chairmanship of Federal Minister for NFS&R Sikandar Hayat Khan Bosan to review the overall position of agriculture output and data of Kharif crops including sugarcane, rice and maize.

The FCA meeting for Kharif crops 2017-18 held in April this year fixed sugarcane production target at 68.25 million tons for 2016-17 from an area of 1.13 million hectares, compared to last year’s production of 65.1 million tons from an area of 1.1 million hectares. The FCA had fixed the rice production target at 6.8 million tons for 2017-18 from 2,786 thousand hectare of land.

The official said that the meeting would also set targets for the Rabi crops 2017-18 like wheat, gram, lentil, potato, onion, tomato and oilseeds, he added

He said that in 2016-17, wheat production in the country stood at 25.482 million tons from an area of 9.17 million hectares. The meeting would also examine availability of other agricultural input including provision of water, fertilizers, certified seeds and other pesticides for crop production throughout the season.

The FCA would also review agri-business support fund, projects for efficient use of water for irrigation and progress of the development and different research projects, he said.

The committee would also examine the performance of different institutions including, Pakistan Agriculture Research Council (PARC), Pakistan Oil Seed Development Board, Pakistan Agriculture Storage and Services Corporation (PASSCO), Federal Seed Certification (FSD), Department of Plant Protection (DPP) and other allied departments.