REAP urges government to facilitate farmers

Rice Exporters Association of Pakistan's (REAP) acting Chairman Mohsin Aziz has urged the federal government to fully facilitate the farmers who are one of the most important stakeholders of the rice industry. In a statement issued here on Thursday, he said all the rice exporting countries are facing tough competition and prices are on the declining trend.
He further said that this is the market phenomena and due to the demand supply aspect, we see such trend in times and have to cope with it. He urged the government to compensate farmers in the shape of free seeds, free pesticides, free water, free fertilizer, free electricity and other facilities. As farmers are not equipped with the latest machinery and due to the mishandling, every year we have to see crop loss, and we could not get the right quality of rice.
He said, "We are agreeing with the government to support farmers, but this should be done through a proper mechanism". He recalled that in year 2008 Passco had procured 200,000 m/tons rice with prices higher than the prevailing market and even after 6 years they could not dispose off these stocks and ultimately the government had to face up to Rs 24 billion loss.
He also quoted the example of Thailand, where the government procured the rice with high prices and that could not be materialised and up to 17 million tons of rice was damaged, as they do not have the proper storage and warehousing facility and finally they have to face $30 billion loss to the exchequer
He said the government's involvement in such business activity would be harmful to the private sector who had invested billion of rupees to build an infrastructure and human resources and rice export trade become the 2nd largest foreign exchange earner for the country. However, in case of the government involvement in rice business, we will lose a heavy foreign exchange as well as the credibility which the rice exporters have earned after long hard working.
REAP demanded the government to give due consideration to the grievances of the rice industry and give free hand to the private sector for playing their positive role, boosting the economy which badly affected due to certain reasons. He appealed to the prime minister for sympathetic consideration in the larger interest of rice industry.