Subsidies restricts agriculture growth
Staff Reporter
Sunday, August 12, 2012 - Islamabad—The governmental control over agricultural affairs, subsidies and rent seeking approaches have restricted agriculture business to become competitive in line with the concept of free market, said an official.
According to the official the government is not perusing the guidelines provided by the Framework for Economic Growth under which the government has to review and improve policies such as seed, fertilizer, irrigation water pricing, electricity subsidies, food subsidies, release stocks, food procurement, support price, import tariffs and export controls.
“To make the agriculture business more competitive, agriculture markets needs to be deregulated to promote private sector participation and to attract investment in developing supply chain, modern storage and warehousing facilities,” said the official, adding that compliance of international standards and certification of agricultural commodities and products for export should be focused to access the high end markets.
According to the Framework for Economic Growth governmental role would shift from active player to a facilitator and regulator and this policy shift will help reduce the public burden and enhance economic activity by providing better opportunities to the private sector.
“After necessary restructuring, the national agricultural research system would be having better service structure, focused research, avoiding duplication and enhanced coordination,” the official said, adding this will bring innovations in agriculture and ultimately the commercialization of technologies.
The official said agricultural policy analysis capacity will be enhanced to have knowledge based decision making in economic planning and efficient resource allocation. There will be efficient public sector institutions resulting in better service delivery. All stakeholders will be involved in planning process by adopting demand driven and bottom up development approach.
The government has planned to form a high social capital to promote participatory asset management, the utilization of advanced technologies, improved input availability and use efficiency would result in high crop.
According to the official the government is not perusing the guidelines provided by the Framework for Economic Growth under which the government has to review and improve policies such as seed, fertilizer, irrigation water pricing, electricity subsidies, food subsidies, release stocks, food procurement, support price, import tariffs and export controls.
“To make the agriculture business more competitive, agriculture markets needs to be deregulated to promote private sector participation and to attract investment in developing supply chain, modern storage and warehousing facilities,” said the official, adding that compliance of international standards and certification of agricultural commodities and products for export should be focused to access the high end markets.
According to the Framework for Economic Growth governmental role would shift from active player to a facilitator and regulator and this policy shift will help reduce the public burden and enhance economic activity by providing better opportunities to the private sector.
“After necessary restructuring, the national agricultural research system would be having better service structure, focused research, avoiding duplication and enhanced coordination,” the official said, adding this will bring innovations in agriculture and ultimately the commercialization of technologies.
The official said agricultural policy analysis capacity will be enhanced to have knowledge based decision making in economic planning and efficient resource allocation. There will be efficient public sector institutions resulting in better service delivery. All stakeholders will be involved in planning process by adopting demand driven and bottom up development approach.
The government has planned to form a high social capital to promote participatory asset management, the utilization of advanced technologies, improved input availability and use efficiency would result in high crop.
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