PESHAWAR:Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) under its USAID funded project “Restoring subsistence and commercial agriculture in merged districts of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa” is promoting five value chains through establishment of improved market structures and strengthening of services in the merged districts of Khyber, North, and South Waziristan.
According to a press release issued here on Friday, the project monitored increased production and income during a period from 2019 to 2020 while sales value of growers also witnessed increasing.
Creation of thirteen market structures was done that provided market intermediaries a place to interact without risks of heat, rain and protection for their goods.
The intervention encourages buying and selling in the said markets for local producers and traders besides stimulating economic activities in the area. FAO has also renovated livestock and horticultural markets, installed packing and collection sheds and auction floors for fruits and vegetables.
Besides this, 105 producer groups were formed with 3,286 beneficiaries along the target value chains of apple, pine nuts, tomato, potato and livestock. To improve promote entrepreneurship, business management and marketing skills of 363 farmers and 36 agro dealers were enhanced through market development workshops.