DNA
Karachi: FPCCI’s Businessmen Panel Secretary General (Federal) Chaudhry Ahmad Jawad said on Friday from 1985 to 1992, the country witnessed major breakthrough in cotton production, and at that time, cotton production increased to 12.8 million bales. It was a paradigm shift, in which Punjab produced 11.4m bales while Sindh produced 1.4m bales. In 2017, cotton production was 11.93m bales which fell to 9.861m in 2018 before slightly recovering to 9.451m in 2019.
Talking to media, he said Cotton production in the country is experiencing a declining trend over the past few years, and interestingly Pakistan Central Cotton Committee (PCCC) is operating without a full-time chief executive and requisite staff in their different centres.
Similarly Horticulturists of the country are facing challenges in competing with rivals in the international market as the government has not been able to implement a food security policy in order to provide a cushion to the sector in a sustainable manner.
The Ministry of National Food Security and Research (MNFSR) failed to come up the implementation of National Food Security Policy document which was completed in last government tenure despite rich claims.
Highlighting the immense potential for Pakistan in the horticultural sector, Jawad pointed out that the country was the 13th largest producer of kinnows in the world, sixth largest producer of mangoes and fifth largest producer of dates.
Not only this, the country also harvests big crops of cotton, sugarcane, rice, potatoes, onions and wheat.
“We are not only leading producers of these products but these have a unique taste due to favourable soil conditions, but still the country has failed to derive the benefits because of absence of a proper agricultural policy and an implementation mechanism,” Jawad said.
He suggested that the government could offer special tariff concessions and give policy on the import of quality seeds which suitable out soil condition till the time PARC and NARC could be self sufficient in the production of seeds.
Apart from this, he demanded Government may also direct the ZTBL to start providing finances to agro-based industries on special rates in order to give a push to value addition as well as agricultural exports of the country he said and urged the ZTBL to initiate lending on value addition for the revival of agro industry.
The organisation must extending fresh loans to farmers especially small farmers in all four province equally, currently bank’s disbursement tilt towards Punjab only.
“Agriculture in the country will improve if ZTBL plays its actual role through new initiatives”.
“The Specialised Bank must encourage value addition activities in fruits and vegetables being grown in different areas of all provinces in order to export such products including extend financing facilities i) small oil extracting units; for promotion of oil substitution crops i.e. Canola, Soybean, Sunflower, Mustard and Olive, ii) Financing for Silo (Crop warehousing facilities construction), iii) financing for Milk Chilling Units to promote standardized dairy supply chains, iv) Horticulture and establishment of Green Houses/Tunnel Farming, v) Financing for Silage Baler for promoting silage making.
On edible side of imports, Pakistan spends substantial amount of foreign exchange on import of edible oils every year, in order to save precious foreign exchange reserves, ZTBL must introduce concessional loans to the farmers for encouraging sowing of soybean, canola and sunflower in larger areas of the country but there is no concessional loans for import substitution crops.
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