HYDERABAD: The Sindh Abadgar Board, a farmers’ lobbying group, has urged the federal and sindh governments to keep in view 100 per cent to 150 percent hike in the cost of agricultural production while preparing the budget for fiscal 2023-24.
In a statement issued here on Monday after a meeting of the SAB, chaired by its Vice President Mahmood Nawaz Shah, the board pointed out that the said inflation in the production cost had occurred during the last 12 to 18 months.
“The incessant rise in cost of inputs should either be controlled or should be compensated through prices of the commodities,” the SAB demanded.
The farmers said though they appreciate the government fixed prices of
wheat, sugarcane and cotton crops, the increasing input prices still
made those prices barely viable.
They proposed that the Agriculture Policy Institute should be activated to devise farmers’ viability plans by assessing cost of production of the main commodities.
They pointed out that the farmers received the electricity to the
extent of 12 hours maximum in the rural areas.
Keeping in view the demand and shortage of the electric supply, subsidized solar and air turbine solutions should be provided to power the tube wells, high-efficiency irrigation systems and the farming businesses, they demanded.
The farmers’ representatives said the oil seed development policy should include farmers’ viability, regulatory regime, seed availability and provision of palm plants.
They called for introducing the controlled import regime with tariffs for sunflower and soybean oil seeds so that local production could be encouraged.
The SAB lamented that the import bill of pulses had increased to $820 million and suggested that an extensive import substitution policy
should be implemented.
According to the board, the local growers required provision of quality seeds, disease and pest control measures to enhance the
production of pulses in Pakistan.
The farmers deplored that only 5.5 percent of the formal credit. The portfolio was allocated to agriculture as the small and medium-sized growers’ access to credit was very limited.
“The credit availability is less than 20 percent of agricultural GDP, within that there are distortions like that of the non-crop sector and
provincial disparity.
Therefore, the agriculture portfolio needs to be doubled, and provinces getting less formal credit should be given increased credit,” they demanded.
They urged that the procedures to provide loan should be simplified so
that small and medium sized growers get better access to credit.
The SAB underlined that the horticultural products could provide
opportunity to the economy of Pakistan to produce value added products
for export.
They recommended that the horticultural processing industry should be
encouraged and supported through public-private partnerships, interest
free loans, marketing support and incubation programs provided only to
small and medium sized businesses.
The farmers underscored the need of adopting the approach towards the
climate as the world was moving in the direction of climate action one of whose features should be enhancing water storage capacity.
They said the climate change endowment fund needed to be established
to react to disasters quickly and efficiently.
The meeting was attended by Syed Nadeem Shah. Azam Rind, Mohammed
Aslam Mari, Imran Bozdar, Mohammed Umer Jamali, Taha Memon, Taha
Abbassi, Syed Murad Shah and others.