Agricultural sector during the current calendar year faced some very serious issues including availability of water, higher inputs, erratic rains; longer heat spells etc, which resulted in reducing the productivity of the crops.
Farmers tried their best in contributing to Country's economy but things worked odd against them. From lack of good germplasm in cotton, adulterated and ineffective range of pesticides, climatic conditions and on top of that Government's bad policies were contributing factors, said Farmers Bureau of Pakistan (FBP) President Dr Zafar Hayyat and Aamer Hayat Bhandara (a progressive farmer) while talking to Business Recorder here on Tuesday.
Dr Zafar said wheat, the Rabi crop was hit hard by climatic conditions and unexpected fungal and aphid attack on the crop. Government failed to intimidate farmers on time, it seems pest surveillance team of govt could not appreciate the problem well in time and Govt as a whole failed to devise any strategy which could have averted or minimized the damage. The result was very low production per acre. The purchase price of wheat was insufficient to meet the cost of production. On top of that this year announced purchase price of Rs 1,375 shows the Govt's non seriousness towards policy making and agriculture sector as a whole.
Cotton farmers and the cotton crop, major foreign exchange earner for the country, suffered the impact of bad policies by the public sector, adverse climatic conditions and ineffective and limited range of pesticides available to control the pests. Falling prices of cotton in the month of September further de-motivated farmers to continue with operation for sustenance of the crop, resulting in low productivity, estimated production of 9 million bales is witness to that. It seems if serious investment in R&D is not done and Govt does not come up with some concrete policies helping cotton farmers, we may witness huge losses to cotton industry in years to come, he added.
Rice and Corn were another major Kharif crops hit mainly by adverse weather conditions. Currently sugarcane is being harvested and farmers are once again being victimized by sugar mafia. The millers are shutting down the mills to balance the current price situation in their favour. Government indifference to current situation clearly indicates their insensitivity towards the situation and silence favour providing to the sugar cartel. The cartel was once again managed to fix sugarcane purchase price according to their advantage, Dr Zafar Hayyat claimed.
A progressive farmer and environmentalist Aamer Hayyat Bhandara while reviewing the 2019 said we are hearing since childhood that agriculture is a our mainstay and is playing a great role in the economic development and prosperity of Pakistan but the political, social, environmental and climate conditions have badly impacted its production in recent years.
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