Structural changes needed in agriculture sector to boost production, exports: stakeholders

Pakistan could multiply, several times; exports of fruits and vegetable by introducing structural changes in agriculture sector. Australia is an outstanding example, which by maximising the flow of benefits from investments in irrigation projects, exported 80 per cent of its mangoes production while Pakistan exported only 2.5 per cent.
Stakeholders contend: "agriculture is the life-blood of our country, being agrarian, needs to utilise its potential in this sector but still we are far behind. It is unfortunate that till to-date we have failed to computerise our land revenue information system."
Government must give priority to agriculture sector in the forth coming budget to uplift the country, said member export, Islamabad Chamber of Commerce & Industry (ICCI), Ahmad Jawad while talking to Business Recorder. To strengthen policy-making special funds may be allocated to establish "Agricultural Policy Institute" as IMF and other multilateral donors have urged Pakistani legislators to broaden the tax net and equitably tax revenues across all productive sectors.
While expanding the tax base, there is need to lay emphasis on agriculture sector. Government should enhance the GDP growth rate target through the agriculture sector by increasing crops production, thus making the country an agriculture products-exporting country, he said.
Farmers were facing difficulties due to government policies as surplus agriculture produce had become a problem for them due to inadequate storage facilities. In such a scenario, the government should focus on cold storage facilities in the budget to curtail post harvest losses especially in fruits and vegetables.
"If you want to reduce poverty, you need to go where poverty is," he said adding that reducing poverty will mean targeting investments towards small holders, to employ local labor, supply local markets and spend earnings in local markets, which creates multiplier effect in rural economies, improves local food self-sufficiency and reduces rural inequality.
Similarly agriculture credit may also be streamlined. Interest subvention scheme for providing short-term crop loans to farmers must be allowed at 7 per cent interest per annum. On the question of low yield, he said, farmers were unable to operate tube wells on electricity due to 18-hour load shedding while per acre yield was also low. Unless we recognise water as a resource, the day is not far when water stress will start threatening our agricultural production. It is necessary to focus on micro irrigation schemes to dovetail these with water harvesting schemes.
Jawad underlined the need to focus on seed development, which was not costly after the WTO regime, as currently China produces double the cotton and wheat per hectare as compared to Pakistan. Similarly Egypt produces around three times more rice and sugarcane per hectare as compared to Pakistan.
In this regard, he suggested research and development in agriculture sector and utilisation of modern framing techniques for production enhancement. Currently subsidies given to this sector were eaten up by irrelevant people. Its time to launch National Horticulture Policy; with the allocation of subsidies to the real farmers and agriculture researchers, he added.