ISLAMABAD: Former chairman Federation of Pakistan Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FPCCI) Standing Committee on Agriculture and Secretary General (Federal) of Businessmen Panel, Ch.
Ahmad Jawad has said that the world has gone into a recession in the post COVID-19 era and reemergence for our economy will be possible only if proper and better rates are paid to the farmers as they need to be preserved as a national asset for our future.
In a statement issued here on Thursday, Ahmad Jawad said that we need for advanced technology in the agriculture sector to increase the productivity of agriculture industry in Pakistan.
He also highlighted the importance of food security policies.
Pakistan’s 60% economy is based on agriculture, keeping in view it’s significance the government should provide sufficient technology and tools to revive it during a pandemic, he added.
the government should provide sufficient technology and tools to revive it during a pandemic
The SG BMP said in the current political regime, agriculture is suffering more from a lack of harmony between federal and provincial authorities than anything else. Meanwhile, other structural problems continue to undermine agricultural productivity.
The most important ones are: scant funding of agricultural research aimed at closing yield/productivity gaps, water shortages, low-level modernisation and mechanisation, poor infrastructure for storage and transportation, high pre- and post-harvest losses, broken supply chains, and financing policies that ignore the seekers of development loans and farmers of smaller provinces.
Jawad warned, “Climate change is an irreversible phenomenon especially for agriculture, at-least so it seems in the immediate term.
Unless efforts are made in a timely manner to effectively cope with the challenges emanating from it, we, as a nation, may find ourselves in an extremely painful situation which may be impossible to deal with.
If not handled intelligently the net impact of climate change may be far more painful than the ones caused by terrorism or economic slowdown experienced by the nation in the recent past”.
He also lauded the Asian Development Bank (ADB) to sign an agreement for providing $8.32 million in financing to the government of Pakistan to enable vital preparatory work ahead of a series of major projects to enhance water availability and increase agricultural productivity in Punjab.
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(With Input from INP)
