HYDERABAD: The Sindh Chamber of Agriculture (SCA) has urged the provincial government to fix the cotton and mustard support price for the current season at Rs15,000, and Rs13,000 per 401(g, respectively.

It also called for removal of all encroachments from the routes of natural waterways before the start of the next monsoon.

An SCA meeting heldhere on Sunday was chaired by its president Syed Miran Mohammad Shah. Growers from Karachi, Sukkur, Ghotki, Khairpur, Mirpurkhas, Nawabshah and Larkana districts attended the meeting online.

Miran Shah hailed government`s decision of fixing the support price of wheat crop at Rs4,000 per 40kg, and hoped that procurement centres would be opened on March 1.

An early procurement would help curb wheat smuggling to Afghanistan,he said.

The SCA president noted that prices of agricultural inputs and tractors had also increased like those of petroleum products and all other commodities and machineries and this had affected growers in terms of higher production cost. Keeping this in view, the federal and provincial governments should effect a raise in the procurement prices of agricultural commodities.

He said the support price of cotton crop should be fixed at Rs15,000 and of mustard crop at Rs13,000 per 40 kg.

Mr Shah also called for the imposition of `agriculture emergency` in thecountry with the allocation for Rs300bn for the farm sector.

The participating growers informed the meeting that government was spending over $4.5bn on import of edible oil, and advised that local growers should be supported instead of spending that much foreign exchange on import of edible oil, cotton and wheat.

The SCA president said government should offer Rs13,000 per 40kg to growers for oilseed crops to save foreign exchange.

Referring to the fastapproaching monsoon, he deplored that rehabilitation of the Left Bank Outfall Drain (LBOD),Right Bank Outfall Drain (RBOD), and the Ghotki, Kadhan Pateji Outfall, Dhoro Puran, Purani, Jaskani and Tando Mohammad Khan drains had not been undertaken so far.

He said government should clear routes of old waterways before monsoon season to revive them. He also regretted that the Sindh Seed Corporation (SSC), which owned around 7,000-8,000 acres of land, did not cultivate even a single acre for seed production.

He demanded action against inept officials so that the SSC could be made functional and seed production could be started.He called for an inquiry into the expenditure of funds released for the desilting of canals during their closure period.

Mr Shah also demanded action against those companies which were importing fake seeds as these was destroying farm economy.

He said action should also be taken against those tractor manufacturing companies which had raised its price by Rs400,000.

He said fertilisers and tractors should be provided to growers at controlled rates.

Zahid Hussain Bhurgari, Nabi Bux Sathio, Mir Abdul Karim and others also attended the meeting.