Economic crisis: Uplift of Agri sector is the way out: ex-SBP governor

KARACHI: Former Governor State Bank of Pakistan (SBP), Saleem Raza Thursday said the development of agriculture sector is the only way out of the current economic crisis.

Speaking as a keynote speaker in the conference titled “Agri Connections 2023”was organized by Pakistan Agricultural Coalition, former Governor SBP Saleem Raza said that agriculture is not performing well as its growth is mere 2.5 percent which should be around 6 percent.

“If Pakistan’s agricultural sector is developed on modern lines, the food trade deficit will be eliminated in three years and the production surplus can be achieved in another three years,” he added.

He said Pakistan needs 1960s like measures for agricultural revolution because Pakistan’s production per acre is half and less than the world average in many crops. “Pakistan’s agriculture sector needs financing of 2700 billion rupees. Agriculture is the only way for Pakistan to address problems like external deficit and declining exports for a lasting solution,” he added.

PAC Chief Executive Arif Nadeem delivered welcome speech on Pakistan’s Agriculture and Opportunities in the Global Economy.

He said Pakistan’s economic growth targets must include 4 percent real GDP growth in agriculture. This requires a rise in crop yields to take Pakistan from being a food importer to a food exporter—net of the food security stocks required in-country.

He said that current balance of payments crisis has created the need for significant import substitution and an increase in exports. The agriculture sector can provide solutions to the major problems facing the country’s economy.

The first session of the conference was “investment opportunities in agriculture” in which Chief Executive National Foods Limited Abrar Hasan said that a lot of policy framework development and updates need to be addressed

He said that Standardization is the starting point which can help us identify the training of farmers and supply chain stakeholders. Chief Executive MFT/Kubota Pakistan Shahid Tawawalla said that mechanization is important in both areas where labour is in excess and where it is not and we need to promote large scale service providers and mechanization will not eat jobs but will create a new set of jobs.

Asad Gilani, Secretary Board of Investment, said that we are underpowered agricultural nation as in Pakistan we are at 1 horse power an acre as compared to 2 HP per acre in India.“We lose 12 to 13% of wheat yields due to lack of mechanization that makes of about $200 million dollars in value and we lose about $500mn in post-harvest losses,” he maintained.

Mahmood N Shah of Sindh Abaadgaar Board said that they have only one laboratory and negligible cold storages.

During the session on ‘Increasing growers’ profitability’ speakers said that better seed is at the core of the long-term growth prospects in Pakistan’s agriculture. The session ‘Sustainable Agriculture and Climate Change; concluded that the tools to protect farmers from the impacts of climate change and biological perils are now available.

The conference provided policy priorities to the government and concluded that within this decade Pakistan must shift from being a victim of high global agri-commodity prices to a beneficiary.

Copyright Business Recorder, 2023