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Production of cotton, wheat
S M Naqi
Production of cotton has been reduced to 10m bales from
10.6m or more. In fact due to rising prices the exports of textile goods and yarn would be
seriously affected. Consequently it is imperative that imports of cotton by textile mills beallowed from 0.5 million to 1.0 million bales.
This will reduce the current cotton prices and bring stability to the exports trade otherwise it is felt that exports target would be
impossible to meet.Wheat: Although wheat output had been shown at 20m tons, this target is impossible to achieve for the under-mentioned reasons:-
Due to sugarcane still in the fields of Sindh and Punjab, wheat sowing could not be started, which will reduce production of wheat.Due to non-payment to sugarcane farmers from sugar mills, the farmers have no money to pay their loans and/or to purchase seeds,
fertilisers etc or to raise future loans unless previous amounts are cleared.
Sugarcane: Due to the crops being in the field, neither wheat nor any other crop can be sown. In view of non-payment from the sugar
mills and delay in starting crushing season, the sowing of wheat crop will be uneconomical.Therefore, the farmers be encouraged to grow oilseeds ie soyabean, canola etc for which seeds be made available.
On farmers' demand, the Finance Ministry had reduced GST and other taxes on seeds, import will help the farmers to get seeds and plant
oilseeds, which will in turn reduce our imports of palm oil.
Oilseeds: No systematic or consistent policies are followed for production of oilseeds.The boards and other organisations have failed to achieve any result in-spite of incurring heavy expenses which are wasted by the
Ministries.
There must be accountability otherwise no plan can succeed and the country will remain dependent on oilseeds import and even the
imports are increasing year by year.As pointed out in our previous letters, there is no stress on achieving productivity. Figures from India regarding wheat were supplied.
Similar figures can be obtained for cotton, sugarcane and oilseeds, even rice, but there is no sustained policy.When fixing supporting prices, stress must be maintained on achieving minimum production per hectare otherwise those farmers who
produce low produce would also gain the same prices.There is need to support farmers who achieve maximum produce vis--vis, whose produce figures are low.
Cotton Pests: The losses suffered from pests in Punjab on cotton crop are due to defective policies by the Punjab agriculture Department for their suggestion to farmers to use strong pesticides prematurely, to support some favourite parties, which led to shortage of pesticides when the actual attack came at the time of ripening of the crop.
Some proper enquiries be made both at the Federal and provincial levels and such persons should be prosecuted for criminal negligence
and even for corruption if evidence is available, so that no such policy is followed in the future.
In addition, no stress is made on increasing production, which should be our slogan in the agricultural field, for succeeding without any further loss of time.The country has much in stake due to agriculture but it is with deep regret pointed out that lack of proper commitment or sustained policies in this respect in-spite of heavy expenditure on research institutions (most of the funds are spent on salaries, TA, DA etc) with no real benefits to the economy.
It is further ironical that being an agriculture-based country, production of seeds has no real breakthrough.Firms producing seeds are not encouraged resulting in improper production of seeds.When are we going to improve our policies and standards and achieve real benefits for the country?
Business Recorder
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