Play safe: ‘Diversified farming decreases risk’

ISLAMABAD: Diversified farming enables rural families to decrease risk and ensures a stable income, Saudi Pak Insurance Company CEO Mian Shahid said on Wednesday. Production risk is inherent in agriculture due to multiple factors including dependence on weather that can be minimised through proper intervention, Shahid said in a statement. Grain prices are not advancing as fast as milk and meat which is an added incentive, he said adding that sale of milk, yogurt, cheese and butter promises daily flow of income. Shahid said that incomplete or imperfect insurance markets always have a negative impact on farm management. Agriculture accounts for about one-fourth of the gross domestic product and earns about 60 per cent of export revenues in primary and processed forms, he said.

Published in The Express Tribune, November 10^th,  2011.