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Call to change crop pattern
HYDERABAD, March 29: Sindh Food and Agriculture
Minister Arif Mustafa Jatoi has stressed the need
for changing crop pattern in the water deficient
province of the country. He was speaking at the
field day on sunflower organized by the Sindh
Abadgar Board in a village about 45 kilometres
from here on Saturday.
Mr Jatoi said cultivation of sunflower, a high
value and low delta crop would not only improve
economic condition of the growers but also help in
minimizing the import bill of Rs41 billion per
annum on edible oil.
He held out an assurance that the government would
provide all possible incentives in changing crop
pattern. The minister said companies would be
asked to ensure timely availability of seeds to
growers at fair price and marketing of their
produce.
He conceded that the agriculture sector, which was
the mainstay of the economy and accounted for 25
per cent of GDP, had unfortunately been neglected
by the successive governments.
He said sustainable development of agriculture was
on the priority list of the government. The
minister held out an assurance that all possible
help would be provided to growers.
Referring to non-payment of growers' outstanding
dues by the sugar mills, he said he would take up
the matter with the authorities concerned to
resolve the problem.
Responding to a question about the auction of
market committees, Mr Jatoi said, the government
had failed to run the same and the only option was
to auction them to make them self- sufficient.
"By auctioning the committees, 50 per cent more
revenue has been generated" he claimed. He said
the establishment of illegal check posts by the
contractors would not be tolerated and warned that
if any contractor established such posts, an FIR
would be registered against him and his contract
would be cancelled.
Speaking about the lining of watercourses, he
said, that a scheme was in the pipeline and soon
work on the project would be started. Sindh
Abadgar Board President Majeed Nizamani said the
late crushing and negative attitude of the sugar
mill owners had compelled the growers to change
the crop pattern and the growers of sugar cane
areas had brought 180,000 acres under sunflowers
as compared to last year's 72,000 acres.
He warned if sugar mills did not change their
attitude, the growers would continue to shift to
other crops and their mills would turn into sick
industry. Mr Nizamani said more often than not, it
had been claimed that there was a crises in sugar
industry and most of the sugar mills run in
losses.
The ground realities, he said, were that one mill
which had failed to pay grower's dues had
purchased the Fauji Sugar Mills Tando Mohammad
Khan and another mill at Khoski.
Similarly, a new mill with enormous crushing
capacity is being established in lower Punjab on
the boarder of Sindh. He posed a question that if
the industry was in crises then why such a huge
investment was made in the sector.
He said growers were not against the sugar
industry and appealed to the federal government to
provide all facilities to them as enjoyed by the
sugar producing and exporting countries of the
world.
Referring to inordinate increase in the prices of
inputs particularly of fertilizer, he said, the
profits of the fertilizer companies could be
judged from their annual balance sheet showing
profits of billions of rupees.
Similarly, he said, the PSO had announced huge
profits but it did not want to share the profit
with the growers. He demanded that the prices of
fertilizer should not be increased from sowing to
harvesting period of the crops of the year.
The DAWN |
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Pakissan.com; Advisory Point
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