Islamabad
Former President ICCI Shahid Rasheed Butt on Wednesday said Pakistan is no more an economy based on agriculture while it has also failed to move from agriculture to industry like dozens of developed nations.
The country spent over one and a half billion dollars on import of wheat, sugar, cotton and other food items during the last six months despite the fact that livelihoods of farmers, food security of the whole population and majority of employment and exports are linked to this ignored sector.
Shahid Rasheed Butt said that the whole system of agriculture including sowing, purchase, storage, transportation, stocks, support price, subsidy and loans are outdated, faulty and riddled with inefficiencies, red tape and corruption.
Farmers depend on the loan sharks and intermediaries to borrow in absence of a proper banking network while the benefit of good prices is never transferred to farmers but middlemen, he said.
The business leader said that sugar, ginning and textile mills continue to exploit farmers to maximise their profit and expecting textile millers to promote cotton crop is just like trusting cat to guard milk.
The industrial sector has proper links and a say in policymaking while small farmers lack voice and even if they try, they are never heard, he observed.
Wrong quality and quantity of fertiliser, water scarcity, substandard insecticides, hundreds of seed companies selling substandard seed, distance from technology, lac of research and development, low ration of crops insurance and climate change are among reasons that have contributed to the collapse of agriculture.
He said that after the passage of 18th Amendment, the agriculture has become a provincial subject but provinces lack interest and capacity to handle this critically important sector while the federal government has other issues to tackle.—INP
