LAHORE: Farmers across Punjab have voiced their disappointment following Chief Minister Maryam Nawaz Sharif’s decision to retain the previous year’s wheat support price and threatened legal action and protests if the government failed to address the issue.

The chief minister “has failed her first trial on the agriculture front in the province”, Kisan Board Pakistan President Sardar Zafar Hussain said at a press conference on Friday.

“She has decided to maintain the last year’s minimum support price of Rs3,900 per 40kg of wheat, while the Sindh province has enhanced it to Rs4,600 per 40kg.”

Flanked by Sardar Ashfaq Dogar, Akhtar Farooq Meo, and Rashid Minhala, Mr Hussain demanded that the government fix the minimum support price at Rs5,000 per 40kg to maintain farmers’ interest in the all-important crop.

He said the alternative and better route for controlling flour prices is providing subsidies to the farmers on farm inputs.

He announced that if the government did not revise the wheat support price, the Kisan Board would not only approach a court of law against the injustice with the farming community but also come out on roads to force the rulers to accept their demand.

Responding to a query, he said the difference in the support prices between Sindh and Punjab would encourage grain smuggling from Punjab to other provinces, creating a crisis in the local markets.

He argued that considering the rise in the prices of fertilisers, pesticides, electricity, diesel and other inputs, the farmers deserved an increase of at least Rs1,100 per 40kg in the grain support price.

Otherwise, he warned, the farmers might shift towards alternative but more profitable crops, compelling the government to import wheat at much higher costs.

He regretted that the interests of the rural population were being sacrificed at the altar of “feared reaction” by the urbanites in case of an increase in the rates of wheat flour.