Substantial budgetary allocation to turnaround agriculture sector, generate employment for youth
PESHAWAR (APP): The rapid population growth in Pakistan has exhorted extraordinary pressure on food resources, which necessitated bringing investment in agriculture sector in order to meet food requirements of people in the wake of climate change challenges.
As the country’s population has passed the psychological barrier of 233million this month showing about two per cent annual growth rate, the agriculture experts maintained that the population bomb would pose serious threats to food and agriculture in next few years if population continued with existing high pace.
Dr Muhammad Naeem Khan, Professor Economics, Swabi University told APP on Tuesday that the last year devastated flood had wrecked havoc to agriculture and livestock sectors in Pakistan where climate change are posing persistent threats to seasonal crops ie wheat, maize, sugarcane, vegetables and fruits orchards.
Contributing about 24 percent of the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) and accounts for half of employed labour force, he said that agriculture is the largest source of foreign exchange earnings besides feeding the whole population in Pakistan.
Despite a vast agriculture lands, organized watercourses channels and huge manpower, he said Pakistan has been confronted to various economic challenges due to slow pace of growth and poor investment on agriculture in the past
Employing approximately 60% of the population directly or indirectly in agriculture-related activities, such as farming, livestock rearing and fisheries, he said the lack of access to modern technology, inadequate infrastructure, poor seeds and low levels of education and training among farmers were casting negative effects on agriculture production in the country.
Keeping in view of these challenges to agriculture and livestock sectors, he said the Federal Government has presented a pro agriculture budget for fiscal year 2023-24 to increase agriculture production and income of farmers.
Sher Zaman, General Secretary, KP Beekeepers Association said that Federal Government despite economic and financial challenges, has presented a growth oriented budget.
He welcomed the proposal of abolishment of all taxes on imports of agricultural machinery, custom duties and taxes on import of quality seeds and allocation of Rs30 billion for shifting 50,000 tubwells on solar energy.
He said an increase of agricultural loans to Rs2250 billion and allocation of Rs5 billion loans for agro based industries would significantly enhance agriculture production and help farmers to bring more areas under cultivation. “The abolishment of customs duties on invertor solars penals were highly commendable.”
Zilakat Malik, former Chairman, Economics Department University of Peshawar said that despite ecological diversity, suitable climate and vast fertile land, Pakistan is unfortunately among the lowest edible oil producing countries.
Having only 20 percent domestic production of the total requirement, ,he said the country spends approximately US$ 4 billion annually on import of edible oil to meet the pressing demand of its population.
“Respective governments and policy makers could not fully benefit from over 4.4 million hectares fertile land suitable for cultivation of olive, sunflower, soybean, corn, canola and other oils.”
He said Pakistan’s annual requirement of edible oil is about five million tons (MT) with approximately 16kg per capita use and most of its chunk is imported from Malaysia and Indonesia.
He said In 2006 edible oil’s import bill was only US$ 615 million that jumped to US$ 3.8 billion in 2022 with the country presently producing around six MT.
If edible oil prices increase by five percent annually, the country’s imports would further jump. In this situation, sunflower, olive, canola and other products would go beyond common man’s reach, he said.
He said, Spain was producing about 45 percent of world’s total edible oil by utilizing 2.6 million hectare land. On the contrary, Pakistan despite having vast tracts of fertile land, was importing around 80 percent of the required commodity.
Ahmad Said, former Incharge of the National Olive Cultivation Program said that about 100,000 and 300,000 hectare land in Azad Kashmir and Gilgit Baltistan is now being used for sunflower and canola cultivation respectively.
Besides introducing edible oil policy and training of farmers, a five-year mega project ‘Enhancement of Productivity of Oil Seeds’ was launched in 2019-20 to promote edible oil farming.
The first olive promotion project worth Rs 3.82 billion funded by the Government of Italy was launched on June 1, 2012 to cultivate oil seeds on over 1,500 hectare land. The project was handed over to Pakistan Agriculture Research Council (PARC) on February 12, 2012 and completed on June 30, 2015.
To capitalize on this project, he said the Pakistan government launched ‘Promotion of Olive Trees Cultivation on Commercial Scale (POTCCS)’ project worth Rs 3.2 billion in 2015 for increasing production of edible oil.
He said the fertile land was mostly preferred for sunflowers’ cultivation as it required less water than others. “Sunflower is a cost-efficient crop with three months tenure. Farmers can easily earn Rs 200,000 to Rs 250,000 from one acre sunflower as compared to Rs 130,000 to Rs 150,000 from one acre olive.”
He said that progressive farmers had started shifting to commercial cultivation of edible oil crops in Pakistan. At present eight to ten varieties were under cultivation while research on around 50 more varieties was underway to ascertain their weather adaptability and climate change resistance.
A four-year ‘Edible Oil Seeds’ PSDP project has also been launched across the country with 50% shared financing by Federal and Provincial Governments.
“We have set up eight oil processing and purification plants in different research centers at Bajaur, Peshawar, Lower Dir, Swat and Kohat districts to facilitate edible oil farmers,” Ahmad said.
He said that around 70 million wild olive plants were discovered in merged tribal districts and in Malakand, Hazara, Peshawar, Kohat, Karak, Nowshera, Hangu and Chitral districts. “It means, these areas are suitable for olive cultivation.”
He said over 1.2 million olive plants on 1,300 hectares were planted in KP and each tree produces three kilogram oil,” he said and added, “olive tree starts production in five years and continues with it till decades. A farmer can earn Rs 450,000 from 1,500 kg olive.
He said under the National Agriculture Program, 75,000 acres land across the country would be brought under olive cultivation in five years besides grafting of two million wild olives under the Agriculture Transformation Plan.
A mega ‘Olive Promotion Project’ worth Rs two billion has been approved for merged tribal districts in KP to raise olive orchards on 14,000 acres and grafting of 1.3 million wild olive. Moreover, a subsidy of Rs 5,000 per acre and 50 percent relaxation on agriculture equipment is being provided to farmers.
Provision of free seeds to growers under ‘National Edible Oils Project’ launched in 2019-20 has immensely helped increase cultivation of canola and other plants.
Till 2019-20, only 3,087 acres of land in KP was used for cultivation of edible oil producing plants that increased to 7,271 and 12,213 acres in 2020-21 and 2021-22 respectively.
The experts said that massive investment and projects for uplift agriculture in budget 2023-24 would help enhance agriculture production and give enormous boost to income of farmers besides generate employment opportunities for youth.
