LAHORE: Pakistan Businesses Forum (PBF) Vice President Ahmad Jawad has said that meaningful macro and micro level interventions by the state have become indispensable to revitalise the agriculture sector, upgrade agriculture systems and increase yields.
Talking to reporter on Sunday, he said the country was expecting to get the wheat production target of more than 30 million bales during 2021-22.
The timely disbursement of DAP subsidy and
better-quality seeds could boost domestic wheat production to avoid the import of essential commodities, he added.
He said that farmers could help Pakistan achieve self-sufficiency in wheat production and build strategic food reserves with friendly policies to ensure reasonable profitability on their produce.
He said, “We need to continue to invest in Research and development to expand the seed production horizon.”
Improved seed varieties and technologies were a must to boost the agriculture sector adding that efforts must be made to make the seeds, fertilizers and other inputs more accessible and affordable for the farmers, he maintained.
Vice President Ahmad Jawad said the federal government already had been striving to achieve self-sufficiency in wheat production and a record production of 27.5 million tons was achieved last year. Despite that the federal government had decided to import wheat to build strategic reserves.
He said, “If the government encourages local farmers to increase the wheat cultivation area through timely announcement of support price and affordable availability of inputs, such as DAP and high-quality seeds, the country would be able to produce wheat for annual consumption and reserves”.
The PBF VC also said that in view of the substantial jump in price of imported DAP, farmer bodies had demanded that the subsidy amount should be increased to Rs 2, 000 per bag to make it affordable for the farmers.