The Joint Director, Agriculture Credit Department, State Bank of Pakistan (SBP), Muhammad Afzal has said that the country received 70 percent of its foreign exchange from the export of agricultural products.
He further said, development in agriculture sector however, was slow due to lack of technical information and difficulties in obtaining agricultural loans by small growers.
He was addressing at a three-day seminar on "Agricultural loans to small growers on soft instalments and marketing of agri products" at Quaid-e-Awam University of Engineering Science and Technology.
He said 21 banks of the country had been made bound to extend agriculture loans to growers on filing of five simple forms. He said the major cause of lacking development of agriculture sector was low know how and its absence from the marketing section.
Joint Director SBP said the situation was that the traders of India were purchasing world famous Kernal rice from Pakistan and were selling it in world market as Indian rice at much higher rates and were earning precious foreign exchange.
He said Pakistan was fifth country in the production of milk but just 2percent of milk products were exported while India exported 40percent of milk products. He said Thailand was selling Pakistan's Blue Cow as its product while the country was not earning from the Blue Buffalo of Sindh.
SBP's Muhammad Afzal said under these circumstances State Bank of Pakistan had introduced special packages for the agriculture sector and had increased the quantum of agri loans so that growers could take benefit of these packages and increase their output.
He said State Bank had allowed loans at the rate of Rs 8000 per acre of sugarcane, Rs 8500 per acre of rice, Rs 8000 per acre for wheat, Rs 12000 per acre for cotton, Rs 25000 for tomato and Rs 10,000 for fruit farms and added that growers could get additional loans on the basis of income of previous crop output. He said documents provided by a grower for obtaining loan first time would be eligible for seeking loan for a second crop.
Regarding series of seminars to provide information about agriculture sector, he said it was the fourth seminar of the series through which the growers were motivated to obtain agri loans and increase the output.
Addressing on the occasion, Vice Chancellor Quaid-e-Awam University of Engineering Science and Technology, Professor Anwar Ahmed Junejo also spoke on the occasion. The seminar was also addressed by Member Agriculture Board Professor Muhammad Ahmed Khan.