ISLAMABAD: The Federal Committee on Agriculture (FCA) has set the wheat production target for Rabi 2019-20 season at 27 million tonnes from an area of 9.2 million hectares.

The meeting of the Federal Committee on Agriculture (FCA) for Rabi season was held presided over by Minister for National Food Security and Research (MNFS&R) Sahibzada Mahboob Sultan.

According to the working paper of FCA meeting out of 27.03 million tons, Punjab will produce 19.66 million tons, Sindh 3.8 million tons, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa 2.57 million tons and Balochistan with one million tons.

The committee also reviewed the performance of Kharif crops for 2019-20 including sugarcane, rice, maize, chilies and Moong.

The committee was informed that sugarcane production in 2019-20 was estimated at 64.77 million tonnes from an area of 1.06 million hectares while rice production for the year was estimated at 7.7 million tonnes from an area of 3.04 million hectares. The area and production are up 5.5% and 3.6% respectively from the target fixed by the previous FCA meeting.

The meeting also discussed the situation of agricultural inputs for Rabi crops (2019-20). The meeting was informed that availability of urea, DAP and fertilizers during the Rabi 2019-20 seems comfortable. All the urea manufacturing plants are operational including the plants located at SNGPL network.

“There will be no shortage of urea during the coming Rabi Season. The prices of urea in the domestic market have gone up due to the increase in gas prices, inflation and GIDC issue,” the meeting was informed.