Concern over spending Rs110b on import of pulses

FAISALABAD: It is a matter of concern that despite being an agrarian country, Pakistan is spending Rs 110 billion on the import of pulses yearly.

It was stated by University of Agriculture Faisalabad Vice Chancellor Dr Muhammad Ashraf during a meeting with Australian Centre for International Agricultural Research (ACIAR) team comprising Dr Rajendra Adhikari from University of Queensland, Australia, and ACIAR Country Manager Munawar Raza Kazmi. UAF Registrar Tariq Saeed, UAF Institute of Business Management Director Dr Khalid Mushtaq, Dr Mubashir Mehdi, Dr Burhan Ahmad and others attended the meeting.

The meeting discussed the ACIAR ongoing project titled “developing competitive and inclusive value chains of pulses in Pakistan”.

Dr Muhammad Ashraf called for increasing cultivation of protein rich pulses to reduce the import bill. He said that it was unfortunate that we were focusing on five crops only while land, climate and ecosystem of the homeland was fit for growing many crops. He said that pulses growers were going through various problems for which effective measures were needed to raise their income and boost pulses production and cultivation area. He said that 90 per cent of farming community was small farmers. He said that we had to raise the awareness about the latest techniques and provide low price machinery for sustainability in the agriculture sector. Dr Munawar Kazmi said two decades ago, the country was sufficient in pulses production. He said that levy of export tax of 35 per cent on import of pulses at the beginning of this century put a major dent.

He added that the farmers were ignoring this important crop which had a lot of potential. He said that they were making all-out effort to address the issue.