KARACHI: It’s time for the agriculture sector to move away from subsidies to achieve higher productivity through “demand-driven” business models.
Speaking at a press conference on Monday, Pakistan Agricultural Coalition (PAC) Strategy Adviser Kazim Saeed said the investment in the agriculture sector should purely be on a commercial basis.
Sponsored by the country’s leading business groups for developing commercially scalable models for growth, PAC is organising a conference on March 16 aimed at connecting the agriculture sector to industry, finance and the government.
“Pakistan is losing $1 billion annually in three major crops alone because we use poor-quality seeds and outdated methods,” he said, noting that the loss makes up a substantial part of the annual production of corn, wheat and rice worth around $12bn.
He said ensuring access to high-quality seeds constitutes as much as 60 per cent of all benefits that can possibly be extended to farmers for improving productivity. Machinery, credit and subsidies amount to little in the absence of high-quality seeds, he said.
Some of the flagship projects of PAC include the establishment of Pakistan’s first electronic warehouse receipts regime. This regime is bringing credit access to farmers by collateralising commodities for loans while creating incentives for crop testing, grading and standardisation, proper storage, reduction in post-harvest losses and the preservation of crop quality for exports.
“Over three seasons, Rs2bn worth of warehouse receipts have been issued so far,” he said.
PAC also works with the Rice Exporters Association of Pakistan to develop and implement a multi-year programme for increasing rice exports through mechanisation at the cultivation stage. The aims of the project include improving farm productivity, cutting post-harvest losses by 15-20pc and increasing rice exports over the next few years, he said.
