Government to address problems of agricultural community: PM

ISLAMABAD: Terming agriculture and agriculturists as the backbone of the country’s economy, Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif has assured the agricultural community that the government would address their genuine problems on priority basis as they were doing a great service to the nation.
He chaired a high-level meeting at the PM House on Wednesday in which representatives of the agriculture sector were also present. The meeting deliberated on issues and problems faced by the agriculture sector in the wake of a downward trend in the international commodity markets, which has adversely impacted the domestic agricultural commodity market. Surplus stocks of agricultural products in international and domestic markets have put pressure on the support price mechanism and profitability of agricultural production has been affected.
The prime minister directed that the Ministry of National Food Security may initiate measures to attract investment in high-tech seed industry and suggest if there was any legislation required to do that. He asked the officials concerned to develop standards for use of agricultural machinery to improve their efficiency. Provincial governments were directed to initiate a process for implementation of the recommendations of agriculture forum. The meeting was informed that in Pakistan agriculture is mainly a small farmer’s business, living in rural areas and any price shock has damaging effects on millions of small farmers earning their livelihood from the agriculture sector.
The meeting agreed that the Pakistani agriculture is suffering from global phenomenon and a strategy is required to come out of this economic situation. The meeting was informed that in view of the situation, the Planning Commission organised a forum on agriculture pricing trends and its possible implications on rural economy in August 2015.
The meeting deliberated in detail on the recommendations of the forum with regard to problems faced by the producers of major crops like rice, sugarcane, cotton, wheat and vegetables. The meeting analysed and evaluated implications of the government interventions to manage the price fluctuations while keeping the interests of both the producers and consumers in view so as not to adversely affect any segment of the society. The high costs of agricultural inputs were discussed and the prime minister directed to devise proposals to bring down the cost of inputs to improve the per acre yield and profitability.