Like every year, paddy growers are forced to sell their produce at very low prices in the absence of a policy to support them. The beneficiaries of lower prices are the food processing companies, rice millers and the middle men.
Farmers in Sindh say they have sold non-Basmati varieties of paddy for just Rs725-750 per 40kg during this season to the agents of food processing companies and rice millers. And growers of Basmati varieties both in Sindh and Punjab are getting Rs1000-1050 per 40kg.
Farmers complain that selling paddy at these prices doesn’t even cover the farm input costs and if the government does not announce and implement higher support prices they would launch countrywide protest. Pakistan People’s Party says it would join such protests if farmers’ demand is ignored.
Growers lobby groups want paddy support prices to be fixed at Rs1200 per 40kg for non-Basmati varieties and Rs2000 per 40kg for Basmati varieties.
“The issue is that after the 18th constitutional amendment, agriculture is a provincial matter and same-level support price fixing cannot be expected across all provinces,” explains an official of the Ministry of National Food Security and Research.
“If political leadership in every province starts demanding fixation of unreasonably higher support prices of certain crops at the federal level — instead of fixing a support price ahead of harvesting — it will only complicate things,” he said.
Unlike wheat and sugarcane, the economics of rice is a bit more complicated. The country produces surplus rice and has been its traditional exporter. Rice exporters and food processing-cum-exporting companies have very close ties with paddy growers.
“When they manage to buy paddy at mutually agreed prices from small growers, big growers come forward, use farmers lobbies and start pressing for higher support prices. They forget that under the law, the provinces are free to fix whatever support price they feel right in their own jurisdiction, Passco’s procurement prices shouldn’t be mistaken as support prices,” says another senior official of the ministry.
Obviously, the whole issue has political and social connotations as well. That’ why we saw a sort of rural-urban divide in work when the National Assembly’s standing committee on agriculture met recently and took up the issue of fixing support prices.
