Punjab Agriculture Minister Malik Ahmad Ali Aulakh has said the government will protect the rights of farmers, adding that fake pesticides and dealers will be dealt with irony hands. He stated this while addressing concluding session of the Planning Meeting of Annual Research Programme of AARI for Rabi 2008-09 at the Ayub Agricultural Research Institute, Faisalabad.
Besides AARI scientists, farmers, representatives of agro-based industries, eminent scientists from the whole country and other stakeholders attended the meeting. He called upon the scientists to evolve the varieties having high yield potential and formulate effective recommendations about their production technologies, so that production should be increased.
About the payment to sugarcane growers, he said mill owners were directed to make the payments by 15th August to farmers concerned otherwise the legal action will be taken against them. The minister also said that under a new project the Punjab government has decided to provide tractors to the farmers at subsidised rates. For this purpose, the government has allocated Rs 200 million for subsidy and Rs 0.2 million will be paid as subsidy on each tractor, he added.
Malik Ahmad Ali Aulakh also said the government has allocated Rs 3.5 billion as subsidy to provide eight kinds of agricultural implements to the farmers to enhance their efficiency and crop productivity. Earlier, Dr Muhammad Rashid, director-general, Agriculture (research), in his address of welcome, told the participants about the Annual Research Programme of AARI for Rabi 2008-09 that five expert groups were formed to finalise this programme.