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Friday March 29, 2024

‘Agriculture not a priority for central, provincial govts’

LAHORE: Agriculture is not the government’s priority since the policies being pushed by the centre as well as provincial authorities have failed in curbing declining farmer income, Pakistan Kissan Ittehad (PKI) President Khalid Mehmood Khokhar said on Tuesday. “We, the frustrated farmers of Punjab province, which is touted as the

By Munawar Hasan
July 15, 2015
LAHORE: Agriculture is not the government’s priority since the policies being pushed by the centre as well as provincial authorities have failed in curbing declining farmer income, Pakistan Kissan Ittehad (PKI) President Khalid Mehmood Khokhar said on Tuesday.
“We, the frustrated farmers of Punjab province, which is touted as the breadbasket of the country, demand the government to follow the footsteps of neighbouring countries and abolish undue taxes on farm inputs and provide them subsidies on various heads in a bid to give some relief to loss-bearing farmers,” he said.
He also lamented that the raw milk being produced in the country has gradually been substituted by imported milk powder by major dairy producers, hurting milk sellers and other users, badly hurting the livelihood of the rural population. This alarming trend has gradually hit dairy farmers hard and resulted in a decrease in the overall number of dairy farms from 11.5 million in 1996 to less than 8.0 million farms.
Like India where 65 percent duty is levied on import of milk powder, Pakistan should also increase import duty to protect and support the local dairy farms from total devastation.
The PKI also raised strong concerns over the suggestions to allot the land of National Agriculture Research Council (NARC) for a housing scheme in federal capital in a bid to generate revenues from real estate business, said Khokhar.
Khokhar claimed that farmers are facing losses in all major crops, including cotton, sugarcane and rice. The average per acre cost for cotton, including all inputs/operations comes around at Rs84,100, however, the market rate per acre reaches Rs57,200 approximately, which means a loss of Rs26,900 per acre, which is huge, he said.
Similarly, sugarcane’s average production cost per acre comes at around Rs151,700 and the farmer gets around Rs 135,000 bearing a loss of Rs 16,700 per acre. Rice growers, he said are facing the maximum loss per acre. The average cost of rice per acre comes in at RS 67,200 for which farmers get Rs36,000, in the market, bearing losses worth Rs31,200 per mound.
The only solution is a subsidy that will provide relief to farmers and also help strengthening the agriculture sector of the province which is the backbone the country, he said. He added that consumers would also benefit from the decrease in price of produce in the markets.
The PKI president said that India is giving huge subsidies on agriculture inputs. In neighbouring India, urea is available at Rs490, whereas in Pakistan it costs Rs1,900 - a difference of 288 percent. Similarly, he said, DAP price is Rs1,913 in India whereas in Pakistan it is Rs3,800 for farmers - a difference of 97 percent. The diesel price for the farmers in India is Rs55.5 per litre and in Pakistan it is Rs94.4 per litre - a difference of 70 percent, he said.
Subsidy is not the only thing which is boosting per ace yield in India for different crops, he said. India is also using quality seeds with modern technology, whereas Pakistani farmers are still using the old low quality imported seed and conventional technology which adds to the woes of farmers, he said.
Referring to the planned conversion of agricultural land into a bustling neighbourhood in the federal capital, Khokhar said, the government instead of promoting modern technology and research in seed production, is planning to convert 1,400 acres of land into a housing society. He added that if such a national asset is to be shifted to some other place, than its infrastructure, laboratories and equipment could cost the national exchequer double than the amount it had spent on the existing institute.
Khokhar warned that if the government did not solve the burning issues of the farming and dairy sectors, and rollback any plans of transfer of NARC, farmers would be bound to start protests after Eid. “We will never allow anyone to destroy the agriculture sector of the country,” he stressed. The tall claims of the government about promotion of agriculture should be translated into a tangible outcome, he opined.