Islamabad: Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif on Monday directed Ministry of National Food Security and Research to prepare an Integrated Rural Development Plan for building affordable credit line for farmers through financial institutions, state-run \u201cRadio Pakistan\u201d reported.
\nIn his directive, the Prime Minister advised to prepare an action plan to harness potential of various areas for high value crops, which include olives and grapes for Potowar, pulses for Kalat and Khuzdar, dates for Makran coast, apples for Quetta and Zhob Divisions, and wheat for Dera Ismail Khan Division.
\nAppreciating the ministry’s broad policy framework and diversification plan, proposing reduction in reliance on staple food grains and increased focus on high value products through holistically addressing technological, climate change and water resource issues, he pointed out some areas of concerns requiring ministry’s attention in order to expand production base of agriculture base in the country.
\nThe prime minister asked the ministry to prepare a comprehensive presentation on the subject, incorporating foregoing observations, within a week.
\nHe viewed that in our labour-intensive agriculture sector, adoption of innovative technology or new practices involved direct costs as well as risk of failure.
\nHe said for subsistence farmers, the utilization of such interventions may not be feasible without robust institutional support. Commercial banks consider agriculture sector risky and unprofitable, in turn giving Arhtees (Commission Agents) oligopolistic control of rural credit market, interlinking credit and output transactions, thereby minimizing net agricultural income, he added.
\nThe prime minister stressed the need for material improvement in agriculture research, notwithstanding, the ministry should have suggested concrete and verifiable accountability mechanism for proposed restructuring of research institutes, hence justifying demand for special pay scales.
\nHe observed that the private sector seed corporations and marketing companies needed to be encouraged in order to reap productivity gains through development and availability of high-yield, pest-resistant seeds suited to local climate conditions and resource.
\nHe also called for simplifying the marketing of new seed varieties for private sector firms. He observed that the Provincial Agriculture Extension services wings had failed to deliver requisite services to farmers, so the ministry should present alternative modes of provision of services, possible through Public-Private Partnerships with agriculture input suppliers. The ministry’s policy paper suggested 3-5 years timeline for impact assessment of climate change on crops, development of climate smart crops and adoption of resilient crop productions technologies to mitigate impact of climate change.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Islamabad: Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif on Monday directed Ministry of National Food Security and Research to prepare an Integrated Rural Development Plan for building affordable credit line for farmers through financial institutions, state-run \u201cRadio Pakistan\u201d reported. In his directive, the Prime Minister advised to prepare an action plan to harness potential of various areas for […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":286,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-5350","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-top-news"},"yoast_head":"\n