Pakistan: Government abolishes support price for wheat

The federal government has decided to stop its intervention in the domestic wheat marketing system by abolishing the traditional announcement of minimum support price every year. The national food security and research secretary informed the National Assembly Standing Committee on National Food Security on Thursday that there will be no minimum support price for wheat this year as per the agreement with International Monetary Fund (IMF). The official informed the committee that sufficient wheat is available for the current year, and no import will be required, and there are no restrictions on wheat movement between provinces or districts. The government is working with the private sector to ensure that storage facilities are available to farmers through commercial banks. The government intervention seemed to have the objectives to protect the interests of consumers by keeping the domestic price below the import parity price, and to protect interests of producers by reducing ...