The country has suffered a loss of about 250 billion rupees (PKR) in the agricultural and livestock sectors and the flood recovery costs may run into billions of dollars, local experts and a UN spokesman said yesterday (12 August).

According to Dawn, 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.

"The floods have destroyed crops of cotton, rice, sugar-cane and tobacco worth billions of rupees."

Javed Saleem, a former president of the Crops Protection Association (CPA), and Ibrahim Mughal, chairman of the Pakistan Agricultural Farms Association (PAFA), said over 17 million acres of agricultural land had been submerged and ripe crops of rice, cotton and sugar-cane 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.

Sindh has lost standing crops worth PKR95 billion over 100,000 acres. Cotton and rice are the major crops destroyed by the floods.

In Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, over 325,000 acres have been submerged and crops worth PKR29.6 billion destroyed.

Mr Mughal said over one million tons of wheat stock kept in houses had been swept away.

"About 1,000 tractors have also been lost," he added.