Wheat farmers seek gunny bags

VEHARI, April 28: Farmers have protested against the district food department, which allegedly stopped supply of gunny bags to them four days ago. A group of farmers — Abdul Rasheed, Rana Tasawwar, Rao Abdul Rehman, Javed Shah, Rai Nawaz and Allah Bakhsh — said they sold their wheat crop at the rate of Rs800 per 40kg on Thursday because food and revenue officials were using various tactics to delay wheat procurement at the official level. The farmers said revenue and food officials were giving gunny bags to their favourites or influential big farmers, completely ignoring small farmers. As a result, they said, small farmers were forced to sell their wheat to private buyers. They said ruling political parties` representatives were also helping their voters and supporters benefit from the wheat procurement campaign. Middlemen and private buyers here are buying wheat from farmers at Rs750 per 40 kg up to Rs800 per 40kg instead of the official rate of Rs950 per 40kg. Kissan Board Pakistan representative Muhammad Nawaz said farmers were suffering because of connivance of food and revenue officials. District food controller Safyan Asif Awan said there was no change in government policy on supply of gunny bags to farmers and added that growers could get eight gunny bags per acre of wheat on the recommendation of revenue staff. He said supply of gunny bags was started to farmers here on April 25 and wheat procurement would begin on April 30. He said gunny bags were being given to farmers without any discrimination.