Focus Agriculture to Up Exports

FOCUS AGRICULTURE TO UP EXPORTS
ACHIEVING FOOD SECURITY REQUIRES REMOVING IMPEDIMENTS AFFECTING PRODUCTIVITY
It is not a cliché but hardcore realities that if Pakistan wants to accelerate GDP growth rate it has to focus on agriculture. The two immediate benefits will be achieving food security and ensuring optimum supply of cotton and sugarcane, the two agro-based large scale industries. Since bulk of country's population lives in rural areas, creation of new job opportunities and improvement in disposable income would also result in higher sale of consumer durable as well as consumer goods. Higher spending would also improve General Sales tax (GST) collection.
However, to achieve higher production and productivity in agriculture sector certain inputs are a must. These include 1) high yielding certified seeds; 2) adequate supply of irrigation water; 3) ample supply of fertiliser; 4) sufficient supply of quality pesticides/insecticides and 5) all season farm-to-market roads. It may be true that ensuring all the inputs may not be possible in the short-term but a focused plan can help in doubling the output over the next ten years. Pakistan has no option but to work on war footing to ensure adequate supplies for the population growing around 3 percent per annum. It must be remembered that Pakistan can double the production without bringing additional area under cultivation.
Finance Minister, Dr. Hafeez Shaikh has raised a pertinent point that if wheat and sugar prices have declined by around 40 percent in the global markets, why their prices have not come down by the same proportion in Pakistan? For his kind information his colleagues sitting in the national and provincial assemblies and senate are responsible. While they have been supporting hike in support price of food and cash crops, least attention has been paid to improving yield.
Poor yield is the outcome of absentee landlords, limited availability of agriculture credit, bad crop management and...