A meeting of Australian Centre for International Agricultural Research and Aus-Pak Agricultural Sector Linkage Program (ASLP) held at UAF

Speakers at a meeting of Australian Centre for International Agricultural Research and Aus-Pak Agricultural Sector Linkage Program (ASLP) stressed the need for making policy interventions in dairy, mango and citrus crops as farmers had been facing tremendous problems in input price as well as with the marketing and governess mismanagement. The ACIAR delegation led by Dr. Debbie Templetow, comprises on Prof. Dr. Bhajan Singh Grewal, Jim Lang and Mr. Munawar R. Kazmi Program Officer of ASLP held meeting with UAF VC Prof. Dr. Iqrar Ahmad Khan (SI) and deans/directors to discuss the issues relating to pro-farmers policy initiatives. There was a commonality of views to put focus on agricultural credit as all commercial banks including Zari Tarqiati Bank could hardly disburse only 300 billion rupees credit against an immense potential of more than 3000 rupees that needs to be bridged with policy initiatives. The participants were of the view to bring tangible interventions enabling the growers get technology and information to raise their per unit productivity as majority of more than 60 million livestock animals are underfed thus they are not able to produce more than 2000 litters per lactation contrast with an animal of Australia who produces more than 8000 litters per lactation. Addressing the visiting delegation UAF VC Prof. Dr. Iqrar A Khan told that majority of the citrus and mango orchards are contracted to a person who gets money from large investor sitting in big cities and the farmer considers the orchards as an additional way of income as his priorities revolve around the traditional crops. Stressing upon a huge investment on Agriculture, Dr. Khan made an effective nexus between agricultural growth and national GDP growth and said when the agricultural growth took place the national GDP rises to the same fashion but “neglecting agriculture could hamper the whole GDP of the country” he added. He said the country has negative balance of trade as our imports are greater than the export adding that against 37 billion dollars of textile export and remittances, import bill is more than 40 billion dollars which could not be considered a satisfactory trade signal. He said Pakistan has no other industry than the agro-industry comprises on fertilizer, cotton, flour, sugarcane, rice and textile so we need to make heavy investment on agriculture which is the lifeline of the country. He was of the view that the country is lagging behind trade as well as agricultural and industrial policies consequently the growth rate remained stagnant. He said that Pakistani farmer does not have the competitive markets around which force him to sell the produce on marginal price. Dr. Iqrar vowed to have a policy centre at UAF so that a workable policy supported with imperial evidence could be brought for the state organs. Addressing the gathering, Dr. Debbie Templetow the program manager impact assessments ACIAR said that they are aggressively working on the policy initiatives relating to input price, marketing and governess issues of dairy, mango and citrus. She apprised the participants about her activities of formulating enabling policy component of ASLP so that the future work or projects of mango, citrus and dairy could be dealt with. Prof. Dr. Bhajan Singh Grewal from Victoria University, Melbourne said that during their visit to Pakistan, they have identified certain areas for future intervention for making the producer more prosper. He said that besides input price, market development is another area of great concerns because whole agriculture sector is neglected with respect to policy support in both areas. He said after submitting a policy paper to the ACIAR in November this year, a project implementation workshop followed with training workshops for the people involved in this business would be organized.