``The gap we are looking at, about 1.12 million tonnes, is the highest on record,'' said country director for Afghanistan, Mike Sackett, at the World Food Programme (WFP).

Afghanistan's wheat production and demand gap in 1995-96 (July-June) was considered a record high but Sackett said the deficit in the next 12 months would be ``fractionally higher.''

He said the deficit was to be met by commercial imports of about 800,000 tonnes of wheat, mainly from neighbouring Pakistan, and 109,000 tonnes of emergency food aid by the WFP.

According to a WFP report, based on a special mission on the food situation in Afghanistan, there would still be an uncovered shortage of 226,000 tonnes of wheat in the war-ravaged country.

Sackett said lower production of wheat in rain-fed areas was the maincause of cereal shortage but use of agricultural land to grow the opium poppy and fighting among the Afghan factions had also contributed to the shortfall.

Fighting in some Afghan provinces continues between the ruling Taleban Islamic movement and its opposition Northern Alliance since the Taleban took control of Kabul in 1996.

Clashes have followed this week's inconclusive peace talks in the Turkmen capital Tashkent, and the Taleban, reinforced by hundreds of Islamic militants from Pakistan and some from Arab countries, who were preparing for a fresh summer offensive.

The WFP report said shortage of irrigation water, late and erratic spring rains and gradual diversion of irrigated wheat land to cash crops like onion, potato, poppy, and tree crops, particularly almonds and apricots, led to lesser wheat crops.

Sackett said the WFP executive board would meet in October and after its approval for an appeal, pledges of food aid from the donor countries will be sought, so that the wheat and cereals can bedistributed in next spring.

He said central Afghan provinces of Hazarajat and some western provinces were more vulnerable to the deficit though poor people in Kabul and the northern town of Mazar-I-Sharif were also unable to buy wheat at the commercial rate.

``...The (WFP) mission would like to warn that the deficit, if uncovered, will have serious food security implications for the poorer segments of the population,'' the report said.