The ready to harvest major and minor crops, including cotton, paddy, chilly and vegetables worth almost Rs85 billion have been completely washed out by the rain and floods in Sindh, an official of Sindh Abadgar Board said on Saturday.
"Almost all the summer crops planted on 2.1 million acres of riverine land on two sides of the Indus River were ready for the harvest,” the president of Sindh Abadgar Board Abdul Majeed Nizamani told, adding that rains and floods wiped out the standing crops completely.
The average value of the washed out crops comes to around Rs40,000/acre, which brings the total cost to around Rs85 billion.
A part of the crops planted on mainstream agriculture lands in the province have also been impacted, the farmers added.
Haji Shahjahan, the president of Karachi's wholesale market of vegetables and fruits association at Super Highway, said the market is not receiving vegetables from the areas which received floods.
At the outset of the floods in Sindh, the market has witnessed shortage of vegetables, including bottle gourd, cucumber, and ridge gourd and there prices have shot to Rs70-80 per kilogram.
Resumption of supply of such vegetables in the last 10-12 days from other parts of the country has brought down the prices to Rs20-25 per kilogram. At present, the market receives these vegetables from Balochistan and some unaffected parts of Sindh.
Source - http://www.freshplaza.com
