The government has announced to allocate Rs 15.8 billion in budget 2007-08 to the development projects of Ministry of Food, Agriculture and Livestock (Minfal) depicting an increase of 40 percent over the allocation (Rs 11.3 billion) made in 2006-07.
Additionally, an amount of Rs 200.3 million has been provided for the agricultural development projects of the ministries of textile, industry, science and technology, Planning and Development and Islamabad Capital Territory (ICT) of Interior Division.
For the next fiscal, the production targets of various crops are: rice is 5720.5 thousand million tons (MT) , basmati 2666.4 thousand MT, Maize 3054.1,thousand MT, sugarcane 55876.0 thousand MT, cotton 14.1 thousand MT, wheat 24,000.0 thousand MT tons, gram 932.0 thousand MT, potato 2249.0 thousand MT, rape and mustard 153.8 thousand MT, and onion 2142.0 thousand MT. While the targets for fertiliser off-take equivalent to 3800 thousand tons has been fixed for 2007-08.
For improvement of water courses 'National Programme for Improvement of Water Courses in Pakistan' which commenced in 2004 will continue. under this project, 87000 water courses are to be lined to save water losses.
Moreover, 18000 watercourses will be improved during 2007-08. Similarly, in order to save irrigation water, two projects will be launched during the next fiscal.
As provincial agri. engineering departments need additional machinery and equipment to reclaim the cultural wastelands, the federal government will facilitate the governments of NWFP and Balochistan by providing bulldozers (200 for Balochistan and 100 for NWFP).
In order to control pests and minimise the use of pesticides, a 'National Integrated Pest Management Project' that was initiated in 2004, will be followed in the next fiscal.
Since April 2002, the government, with the assistance of Asian Development Bank is implementing an Agriculture Sector Programme Loan, which comprises 3 loans totalling $350 million. Two tranches of $225 million have been released and the third tranch is due by June 2007.
The federal government and the provincial governments are implementing 41 and 65 development projects respectively with major focus on building institutional capacity and strengthening agriculture research program for various crops.
As the use of quality seed enables 20-25% improvement in crop yields, the private sector is being encouraged to produce and market improved seeds of various crops. In this respect, 657 private seed companies have been granted permission to do seed business. Eleven new seed testing laboratories have been established and 16 existing laboratories rehabilitated under a project 'Establishment of Seed Testing Labs and Rehabilitation of Existing Labs'. Along with it another project based on public-private partnership with the main purpose of the establishment of 20 participatory units will be initiated.
A project on 'Managing Burewala Strain of Cotton Virus' will be continued in order to enhance genetic and varietals research activities of cotton crop. To support biotechnology, two new projects will be initiated in 2007-08.
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