Citrus growers, processors and exporters have sought certain incentives from Federal Ministry for Food, Agriculture and Livestock (Minfal) to boost the production and expand market access.
All the three stakeholders while sharing their views about the coming citrus crop told the ministry that they should be given incentives particularly in freight to remain in the markets they captured last year otherwise, they would lose them.
Federal Minister for Food, Agriculture and Livestock, Sikandar Hayat Khan Bosan here on Wednesday chaired a meeting of citrus growers for making a comprehensive strategy to boost production and export of citrus.
The growers were anticipating less production of the fruit this year because of frost biting and other reasons. They were of the view that the ministry should also facilitate the exporters to explore new markets particularly of Central Asian States.
The meeting was informed that a project, Agribusiness Development and Diversification costing Rs 4.2 billion, has been launched to reduce post-harvest losses, improve marketing and infrastructure like refrigerator and cold storage.
Addressing the meeting the Federal Minister gave an overview of the horticulture policy and steps taken to improve the marketing and export of the Kinnow.
All import duties have been withdrawn from all agribusiness machinery including second hand refrigerators, containers and establishment of export zone of citrus in Sargodha district, he added.
The minister assured the citrus growers that the concerns raised in the meeting will be taken care of on priority basis. The exporters and processors expressed that these steps and conducive policy of the government could help enhance the export of kinnow in years to come.
He also constituted a task force headed by Chairman PARC to come up with concrete action plan for Kinnow research, production, transfer of technology, marketing and export.
Secretary, Ministry of Food, Agriculture and Livestock Ismail Qureshi, Chairman PARC, representatives of citrus growers, processors, exporters and officials of Minfal were present on the occasion.
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