Pakistan eying 25m ton wheat production this year: Aulakh

"Wheat is being sown in the country with expectations that it will cover 22.34 million acre area this Rabi season." — File Photo

MULTAN: Punjab agriculture minister Malik Ahmad Ali Aulakh has said that wheat production target for the Rabi season 2010-11 has been set at 25 million ton, some 1.5 million ton above the assessed national food requirement at 23.5 million ton.

While talking to newsmen at Fatehpur in district Layyah, Aulakh said that Punjab produces almost 76 per cent of the national wheat production and sowing has already begun in the province, according to a release issued by media liaison unit of Punjab agriculture department on Monday.

Stark warning three months into flood crisis

This photo taken on September 25, 2010 shows a sick Pakistani flood-affected child named Samina is cared for by her mother Shama as they sit on a bed at a local civil hospital in the southern Pakistani city of Hyderabad. - AFP Photo

ISLAMABAD: International aid agency Oxfam warned Friday that three months into Pakistan's unprecedented flood crisis funds were drying up, putting millions at risk with swathes of farmland still under water.

The United Nations issued a record two-billion-dollar appeal for funds to cope with Pakistan's worst humanitarian disaster, which ravaged an area roughly the size of England and affected 21 million people.

TCP to off loads 250,000 MT sugar in open market

"The sale would be made to the highest bidder and TCP will not accept any offer below its landed cost excluding taxes." — File Photo

KARACHI: Trading Corporation of Pakistan (TCP) will off load 250,000 metric tons sugar in the open market in tranches of 50,000 MT each every 10 days through open auction to highest bidders.

According to TCP official here Wednesday, the first tender has been floated today (November 3, 2010) and its bidding will be held on November 6, 8, 10, 12 and 15, 2010 at TCP head office.

The decision has been taken on the instructions of the Ministerial Committee on sugar, after receiving sugar stocks with local mills and dealers and imported stock of TCP and assessing rising trend of sugar prices.

UN starts wheat aid to 500,000 Pakistani farmers

Some 2.4 million hectares of farmland were damaged by the floods, UN's Food and Agriculture Organisation stated. – AFP (File Photo)

ROME: The UN’s Food and Agriculture Organisation said it had begun large-scale distribution of wheat seed in Pakistan to 500,000 farming families affected by catastrophic floods earlier this year.

The aid means the current planting season that ends in December will still take place, the FAO said in a statement, adding that it would also provide vegetable seeds and fertilizer and assist livestock farmers.