Creating job opportunities: Minfal planning to invest in rural areas

The Ministry of Food, Agriculture and Livestock (Minfal) is planning to invest in rural areas to create job opportunities for young generation as the rural poverty is continuously increasing joblessness through migration of unskilled youth to the urban areas, Business Recorder learnt here on Tuesday.
Sources said that a huge investment in agriculture sector can cause reduction in poverty as 70 percent population of the country is living in the rural areas, of which mostly depends on agriculture while rest of 30 percent directly or indirectly dependent of agriculture.
They said growth in agriculture helps in reducing poverty and hunger more than industrial development. Looking back at the investment data during the last three decades, it could be seen that countries that have invested or continued to invest most in agriculture, both public and private, now experience the lowest levels of under-nourishment.
Sources said Minfal is already working on introducing its first ever agri-business policy funded by the Asian Development Bank and for the purpose, a survey has been carried out through agri-business development and diversification project all over the country, including Fata, Fana and AJK to identify the problems the private sector is facing and to find out their solution aimed at alleviating poverty especially in the rural areas.
All the relevant stakeholders, including farmers, traders, small and medium entrepreneurs, researchers, extension workers, policy-makers and experts of agriculture sector are being involved in the project as the agricultural sector has the potential to be a source of economic growth and income generation, they maintained.
They said the agriculture sector would be revolutionised through enhancing investment in agriculture, technology interventions and policy support. High value crops and value addition processes are mainly under focus to make the agriculture a profitable profession and business in addition to making investment in rehabilitating other production factors such as water, agriculture credit, fertiliser and pesticides for improving crop productivity. Livestock sub-sector is also being strengthened and facilitated especially by involving the private sector.
Sources said that steps are also being taken to reduce poverty through macroeconomic adjustments to foster economic growth, improve governance and initiate reforms in key sectors, including human resource and rural development for accelerating the pace of development of the agriculture sector and betterment of the poor living in the rural areas.
The government has funded various projects this year for adoption of efficient agricultural technologies in all the four provinces to increase agricultural productivity, water management, livestock promotion, horticulture development, quality assessment, and agri-business interventions in a bid to overcome the nuisance of poverty, they added.