'Start-ups can transform Pakistan's agri-sector'

NA panel stresses need for tech-driven sustainable agriculture, food security

ISLAMABAD: The youth-led innovative and disruptive agricultural start-ups offer a promising pathway to transform Pakistan’s conventional agriculture sector into a globally aligned and competitive sector, National Assembly Speaker Asad Qaiser said on Wednesday.

During a meeting with founders of various agricultural start-ups who briefed a National Assembly panel on the path-breaking innovations, the speaker urged the government to facilitate and scale up the quality of start-ups as they were engines of rural and agricultural development.

He also underlined the need for creating an enabling environment for the private sector to lead the transfer of farm technology and raise Pakistan’s agri-productivity and export competitiveness.

Members of the National Assembly Special Committee on Agricultural Products appreciated the innovations made by the agricultural start-ups.

They stressed that given the rapid expansion of Pakistan’s population and immense emphasis on the country’s natural resources, tech-driven sustainable agriculture and food security system offered immense potential to meet Pakistan’s food security needs.

MNA Syed Fakhar Imam stated that seven decades of bad governance and according secondary priority to agriculture had hindered Pakistan’s progress to realise the full agricultural potential. He appreciated the National Assembly speaker for taking steps to build the political momentum for uplifting Pakistan’s agro-economy.

He called for youth’s engagement in agriculture, supported by artificial intelligence, e-commerce portal, data-mining and other ICT solutions.

Minister for Inter-Provincial Coordination Dr Fehmida Mirza urged the founders of start-ups to pay specific attention to the problems of small farmers and women, who continued to be constrained by significant barriers including fragmented landholding, lack of access to credit and information technology, and were exploited by middlemen.

Minister for National Food Security and Research Khusro Bakhtiar, while endorsing the observations, underlined the need for examining the rules regulating access to credit for agricultural start-ups.

He urged the start-ups to collaborate with the government on the themes included in the Prime Minister’s Agriculture Emergency Programme.

Published in The Express Tribune, March 5^th, 2020.

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