Pakistan's farm, livestock sectors suffer huge loss due to flooding

A villager harvests rice crop in the field at the village of Karampur, 70 km (43 miles) from Sukkur in Pakistan's Sindh province August 12, 2010. Flood recovery costs for Pakistan's vital agriculture sector and farmers could be in the billions of dollars, a spokesman for U.N humanitarian operations said on Thursday. (Xinhua/Reuters Photo)



Pakistan has suffered a loss of about 250 billion rupees (2.9 billion U.S. dollars) in its agricultural and livestock sectors, a local newspaper DAWN quoted local experts as saying on Friday.

The minister for food and agriculture, Nazar Mohammad Gondal, said "It is difficult to give an exact figure, but I agree that the loss of agriculture and livestock runs into billions of rupees. "

Javed Saleem, a former president of the Crops Protection Association, said over 17 million acres of agricultural land had been submerged and ripe crops of rice, cotton a nd sugarcane destroyed.

Over 100,000 cows, buffaloes, goats, sheep, horses, camels and donkeys have been lost and 3,000 fish farms and 2,000 poultry farms destroyed across the country, said the report.

"According to an estimate, the loss of cotton crop is of about 155 billion rupees (1.8 billion US dollars)," said Saleem.

Ibrahim Mughal, chairman of the Pakistan Agriculture Farms Association, said over one million tons of wheat stock kept in houses had been swept away, adding that about 1,000 tractors have also been lost.

Source: Xinhua