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Pakistan has a geographical
area of 796,095 square kilometers. It lies between 23 and 27 degrees
North Latitude and 61 and 76 degrees East Longitude in the northern
hemisphere. Administratively the country is divided in to four
provinces, Punjab, Sindh, Northwest Frontier Province and
Balouchistan.
Sorghum is
an important coarse grain summer crops, which can be grown
successfully in dry, aired condition and on the marginal soils. Since
the people like wheat more as a human food, so sorghum production has
decline in the past 60 years when new barrages made winter irrigation
of wheat more economic proposition. Since sorghum is also be used as
feed and fodder source, its importance in poultry sector is expected
to increase.
The Punjab
and Sindh are the major sorghum producing Provinces of Pakistan
contributing respectively 47% and 26% of the total acreage. About 60%
of the total area under this crop is irrigated, while the rest is
rain-feed.
The area
under sorghum has fluctuated due to declining trends of its use as
food. This is due to the land under cultivation to sorghum begin
shifted to cotton, summer and wheat in winter. There are no changes in
the climatic patterns but perennial irrigation has changed the
agriculture economy altogether.
In Pakistan
the area under sorghum and millet on the average is 1.5 million
hectares and the yield is approximately 5.4 tonnes/hectare. The yield
is more than wheat and rice, which stand at 3.0, 2.2 tonnes/hectare.
These yields are much lower than those millet and sorghum. However the
demand for millet and sorghum is much less and there is no direct
competition as wheat essentially is winter crop and sorghum is a
summer crop. Its direct competitor is cotton and sugar-cane. There
also is no competition with rice as it is confined to water-logged
areas, where sorghum can have very low yields.
Sorghum is
also classified among aggresses and is capable of rapid growth and
high yields. |
