FAISALABAD:
In an effort to increase per acre yield in the wake of looming threat of food security, the farmers’ community has demanded the government to provide inputs at cheaper rates and lower the interest rates on loans.
The government must pay attention to agriculture improvement and encourage the farmers in rural areas by providing facilities of loan at low interest rates through one window operations, said farming experts in Faisalabad while talking to The Express Tribune.
A number of countries provide cheap agriculture inputs products to improve the per acre yield, but in Pakistan, agriculture sector is ignored for reasons best known by the rulers, they added.
In Pakistan, there is a lack of farming communities and organisations which can hold awareness programmes for farmers and help them improve their farming production and also help to increase the average yield.
Yasir Mahmood, a small farmer in Faisalabad, told The Express Tribune that obtaining loans from the private sector is very costly due to high interest rates but easily accessible as compared to official agriculture loans.
Pakistan has one of the best irrigation systems of the world, but due to lack of resources, most farmers are deprived of the benefits. At the time of cultivation in every season, the cost of seeds, pesticides and urea increase, which affects the cost of production and also affect the average per acre yield, he added.
Published in The Express Tribune, December 4th, 2011.
COMMENTS (2)
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T-o-T moved in favour of the agriculture for a very short when international sugar and cotton prices shot up. Since then cotton prices have dropped drastically from $ 2.14 to $ 0.91 and at the same time fertiliser have nearly doubled and diesel prices have increased astronomically. Sugar has done better but then not every farmer can or does grow sugar.
Urban economists have shown very little interest or have displayed much interest in the agricultural sector. Meekal Ahmed expresses all the biases and ignorance that come with his urban experience hence the traditional rant at the feudal lobby - if every farmer in the rural area is a mustachioed 'feudal' then the corollary is that every urbanite is a rich fat 'seth'.
This can be quantified easily by looking at the domestic terms-of-trade.
It is my impression that the T-o-T has moved in favor of the agriculture sector in recent years and the government tries to keep its feudal lobby happy. There has been a massive transfer of income and wealth to the agriculture sector.