FAISALABAD: Faisalabad Chamber of Commerce & Industry (FCCI) President Atif Munir Sheikh has stressed domestic production of hybrid seeds to give a quantum jump to the agricultural produce, in addition to elimination of rural poverty.
Addressing the first meeting of the FCCI Standing Committee on Seeds, he hoped that the committee would give tangible proposals to make Pakistan self-reliant in food production and enable the FCCI to take up the issues with the provincial and federal governments.
Earlier, Haji Gulzar Ahmad, chairman FCCI standing committee on seeds, said the share of agriculture in GDP was around 19% while it was also providing jobs to 48% workforce. He expressed concern over the hefty import of food items and said that it was alarming for an agrarian economy. He said that we must take fundamental steps to give a quantum jump to our per acre yield in addition to promoting a culture of value addition in this sector. Identifying the problems faced by the sector, he said that low per acre yield, menace of salinity and water logging, insufficient supply of canal water, inappropriate agriculture research, wrong rotation pattern of different crops and century-old techniques of tillage were major causes of decline in the agriculture sector.
He said that non-profitability particularly for small land holders had forced farmers to leave the profession and migrate to cities to earn their livelihood. He said that from net exporters Pakistan has become net importer of food items due to lack of compensation in case of natural calamities and attack of diseases. He said that farmers were also denied easy access to capital to enhance their business. He urged the government to give easy and cheap loans to farmers in addition to undertaking mega projects for reclamation of saline and water-logged lands.
Similarly, efficient use of available water resources should also be promoted in addition to convincing farmers to cultivate high yielding and disease resistant varieties of crops. He also demanded an announcement of minimum purchase price of their commodities well ahead of the sowing season.
Later, Vice Chairman Tariq Aziz offered vote of thanks while it was also attended by Adeem Shehzad, Mohammad Ashraf, Adil Omar, Khurram Abbas, Mohammad Bilal Zafar, Faisal Sajjad, Asif Mushtaq, Shehzad Saleem, Shabbir Hussain and Ghulam Abbas.