Need to focus on unexplored potential of dairy industry stressed

Chairman Standing Committee on Horticulture and Agriculture Produce of Federation of Pakistan Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FPCCI), Ahmad Jawad, has emphasised the need to focus on unexplored potential of dairy industry and horticulture for pushing the overall agriculture growth rate, instead of focusing only on the growth rate of wheat crops.
Addressing the agricultural entrepreneurs, he said the robust agricultural growth and productivity are essential to sustain economic development. "Despite this widely acknowledged role of agriculture for the economic development, many policy-makers, policy analysts and some academicians in the country are of the view that there is little need to invest for better research and in agriculture public institutions' policies that explore the potential of ignored commodities such as dairy products and horticulture," he opined.
"Rapid agricultural growth requires high quality public institutions," he said, adding "the private sector can supplement and support at certain level, but when you talk about national coverage for three million small commercial farmers, you need a strong public sector."
He said that US farmers change the wheat and maize varieties after almost every three years because of extensive research on crop yields and better seed varieties, but similar research institutions are almost non-existent in Pakistan. He said that Ministry of Commerce and the Planning Commission should draft and implement horticulture export policy for the period of 2015-20 on priority and enlist the yearly allocation in the PSDP (Public Sector Development Programme). Elaborating, he said that policy-makers in Pakistan are required to target small commercial farmers in order to increase agricultural output.
Highlighting the importance of agro-based industries, he said that the computation of the contribution from agro-based services along with the entire supply chain will be more challenging but not impossible. Consequently, the contributions should be added to that from the agriculture sector to provide a more relevant indication of the real impact of this emphasis on agriculture as the engine of growth.
In fact, most government interventions and programmes are production-centric in such a way that the farming/production subsystem is not integrated with the post harvest subsystem. "Now the challenge is how to balance the interests of the key players along the supply chain with that of the consumers and the nation, while addressing internal structural and institutional weaknesses," he said, adding that government will have to formulate policies and chalk out strategies so as to enable farmers to meet investment requirements of new market channels.