Sindh government is trying hard to evolve a clear-cut strategy and road map for the agriculture sector enable our farming community to enter in the era of globalisation and competition.
This was observed by Provincial Minister for Food and Agriculture Arif Mustafa Jatoi in an exclusive interview with Business Recorder at his office on Thursday.
He said Pakistan's prosperity is linked with the sustainable development of agriculture sector, which not only provide a source of livelihood to majority of our population but could play a significant role in poverty alleviation.
He however, said that there are number of deterrents in development of this sector which includes the policy of industrialised country who are heavily subsidising this sector and imposing certain conditionality under which it becomes difficult for Pakistan and other developing countries to develop their agriculture according to natural comparative advantage.
While with regard to Sindh province the major draw back is the poor ability of water which could be gauged by the fact that dependence of agriculture in Sindh on mood of canal's irrigation is overwhelming as almost 95 percent of the total area of the 41 percent of cultivable land of the province is cultivated through canal irrigation as compared to other federating units which have not more than 50 percent dependence on canal irrigation.
He said besides this there are heavy conveyance loses from canal outlets to water courses delivery system, the outlets in upper reaches draw more water than the design discharge at the cost of tail ends farmers who do not receive their due share with the result their production per acre is lowest in the country.
Continuing he said that problem related to the quantity of water has impaired the productivity of crop in some areas of the province and there are apprehensions that water to became more limiting factor in coming years with increasing demand of the same for none agriculture purposes.
He said concern over water availability has been looming large in some of areas of the province and the people more often than not seen staging protest demonstration on water scarcity.
The minister said the situation of water problem made it imperative to evolve a strategy for sustainable development of agriculture sector with in the existing resources.
He said the agriculture experts were of the opinion that to bring a change in our age-old cropping pattern a strategy should be evolved.
It was decided that high delta crop should be gradually replace by low water consuming high value crop with the emphasis on improvement in production and quality to make the produce cost effective so that our growers can have market access in international.
Responding to a question with regard to minimisation of water conveyance loses from the canals to farm gates, he said that during all these years various studies have been conducting by national and foreign consultants and the loses were estimated around 34 to 40 MAF.
He said the government have already under taken a project to brought improvement in provincial irrigation network.
The World Bank and the Prime minister have also announced projects under which the lining of canals would be carried out with in next three years.
Reverting back to changing of crop pattern he said a campaign has been launched to motivate growers to replace high delta crop with low water consuming high value crops as such cotton cultivation has been introduced in three rice growing districts of upper Sindh while none traditional oil seed such as sunflower has been cultivated in rice and sugar cane growing areas of lower Sindh with assured marketing facilities.
Similarly number of export processing zone are being established to improve export prospects of surplus agricultural commodities and fruits by bringing it on international standards.
Replying to a question with regard to financial backup to growers he said there were complaints that the agriculture loan mark-up is high particularly the production loans of Zarie Tarraqiyati Bank (ZTB) but efforts are being made to mitigate their problems by arranging institutional loans at reasonable mark-up to growers to improve their production and quality of crops through mechanise means of cultivation, he said several other schemes including the tractors schemes have been undertaking by the private banking sector on suitable terms and conditions.
In reply to another question he conceded that the growers were not getting the fair price of their produce due exploitation of middleman and to axed the element of middle man agriculture produce market committee have been streamlined.
When asked how long it will take to change the cropping pattern to make the sector economically viable, the agriculture minister said, "We are working both on long and short term project".
However, efforts are being made to bring visible changes in shortest possible time.