Dr Siang Hee Tan, Executive Director, Crop Life Asia Thursday said that a very sound agricultural investment policy is needed in Pakistan for agriculture sector, benefiting both old age and young framers from biotechnology to reap the benefits of crop protection technology for encouraging exports.
Talking to Business Recorder, he said that Crop Life Asia is part of a global federation representing the plant science industry that advocates international developments with regards to crop protection, seeds and agricultural biotechnology. Its primary aim is to promote and advocate approaches that enhance sustainable agriculture in the interests of farmers, governments, consumers and the environment.
Recently, its Executive Director, Dr Siang Hee Tan, visited Pakistan to attend the Seminar on Advances in Agricultural Biotechnology and Regulatory Affairs jointly organized by Forman Christian College (A Chartered University) & Pakistan Biotechnology Information Centre. He shared his experiences in other countries of Asia Pacific and how Pakistan can benefit from these.
He said that the challenge in Pakistan is the that the whole value adding piece is missing in the Agricultural sector and the whole supply chain infrastructure needs to step up to capture the value. He said that there is a need of having a very sound government policy to really encourage the whole back bone of the system that all the farmers get benefit from the consolidation. There are two kinds of farmers the old age farmers and they have their own methods and it is very hard to make them understand about the new technologies because they have been using their old ones all their lives and then there are young entrepreneur mind farmers who are scientifically aware of the technology and easy to mold. Government needs to place a policy that benefit both of them and there is a need of restructuring them over the years as the generations change because new generation farmers will not get any benefit with the old policies in place.
To be an exporting country, Pakistan needs to change the whole situation and all elements need to work as one in the system to build a sound and solid infrastructure which benefits all. The small farmers are a political situation which no government can ignore and they need to be heard too. For different commodities there should be different policies. Biotechnology is one component that needs to be working with other components like a functional regulatory environment, a sound Agricultural Investment policy and good scientific personal who continuously try to stabilize things politically and scientifically. This is critical for country like Pakistan to reap the benefits with this technology like other countries who are gaining self-sufficiently to meet their food and feed demands, Dr Siang said.
Talking about agriculture infrastructure development in Pakistan, he said that we need to build strong and better infrastructure for irrigation, for poultry, for storage/warehouse etc and every sector needs to play its role in this development to reap eventual benefits. He said hopefully Crop Life and the member companies are going to be the gelling agents so that everybody comes together and have a very clear manifesto that how do the farmers with the technology in hand protect the crop and the product gets to the market in a timely manner and farmers make a better life by investing in Agriculture and it also propels the economy of Pakistan.
When asked about R&D activities in Pakistan Agriculture, he said that he has seen a lot of investment in Pakistan in the R&D and is glad to see multiple crops involved in biotech research which will benefit the country in long run. He said that there is a need to have a market driven R&D. Researchers don't see behind the scene of commercialization, a lot of the things are licensed for R&D only and not for commercialization. Most of the time they don't consider patents. The technology licensing needs to be very active and one should never forget good products to commercialize. Everyone in the agriculture industry needs to step up and become a value adding factor.
He said that capturing the farmer's hearts and customers is a very different story than your inspirational design so this gap needs to be gelled in. It is very important that the industry and Government work together and listen to the farmers as to what they need and then accordingly develop the technology.
Talking about the Crop Life role in promoting agriculture technology and sustainable agriculture around the world, he said that Crop Life represents seven major technology companies including DuPont Pioneer, Monsanto, Syngenta, FMC, Bayer, BASF etc. These companies, invest globally US$ 6.5 billion annually in R&D of agricultural technologies. They have a consistent pipeline to bring these technologies into the hands of the farmers, that includes 3.5 billion dollars alone in seed biotechnology & crop protection technology.
It is only possible with the help of advance technology and the crop protection technology that now without clearing more land to cultivate a lot more can be produced from the same land, and this way we are preserving the eco-system and bio diversity in the environment.
He said that all stakeholders need to be aligned to adopt these technologies and reap their benefits as in other countries. He said that developing a product and introducing it into the market is one piece while the other piece is that whether the infrastructure provides the financial capability for the transaction cost, the farmers cost. He highlighted that our member companies are working in Pakistan to introduce biotech corn with events that are approved in other countries for many years. However, they face a lot of challenges in terms of comprehensive biotech commercialization policy and alignment among multiple ministries to implement the biotech commercialization Rules. He mentioned that a lot needs to happen and their role is to see that how a lot of people come together and overcome the gaps and streamline the regulatory policies and government initiatives to achieve high levels of agri productivity, Dr Siang added.
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