Sindh okays new agri, youth policies

KARACHI: The Sindh cabinet met on Monday and approved new agriculture and youth policies, as well as the establishment of two new universities, Shaikha Ayaz University in Shikarpur and Begum Nusrat Bhutto Women University in Sukkur.

The agriculture policy, which was presented to the cabinet meeting chaired by Chief Minister Syed Murad Ali Shah, has been complemented by a series of background studies in the areas of macroeconomic factors, poverty and gender, climate change, value chain enhancement, resource use efficiency, and nutrition and fiscal space utilization, in addition to consultation with farmers and stakeholders. The time horizon of the agriculture policy would be until 2030 in view of the internationally agreed sustainable development goals. However, various legal, regulator, institutional and expenditure-related changes set out in the policy would be implemented over a period of two years, from 2018-19 to 2019-20. Sharing some facts with the cabinet, the chief minister said that in terms of agriculture, Sindh accounted for 18 per cent of the country’s land area, and 16 per cent of its total under-cultivation area, and contributed about 23 per cent to the national agriculture value-added production.