September 13, 2003	Saturday	Rajab 15, 1424

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FAISALABAD, Sept 12: The National Committee on Agriculture has formulated a new agricultural policy for changing the cropping pattern, increasing yield, improving the marketing system, overhauling research and preparing for WTO challenges.

The committee, headed by University of Agriculture vice-chancellor Prof Dr Riaz Hussain Qureshi, finalized its report under the Pakistan Council for Science and Technology. Other members were Dr Amir Mohammad, former agriculture secretary, Dr Iqbal Shah, vice-chancellor of the University of Peshawar, Dr Ghulam Ahmed, director-general of the Ayub Agricultural Research Institute, Dr Rashid Javed, director-general for livestock in Balochistan, and Dr Maqsood Ahmed Gill, research director of the University of Agriculture, Faisalabad.

According to the report presented to the federal government for implementation, there is a need to shift the objectives of research from increasing production and attaining self-sufficiency to increasing the income of farmers and making agriculture an engine for economic growth. Moreover, diversification of production has been given special attention in the report.

The report noted Pakistan was facing serious challenges in the form of a worsening famine, degradation of land resources, subdivision of agricultural land, erratic weather conditions, a deteriorating environment, uncontrolled population growth and the WTO regime.

The committee claimed that Pakistan could increase its exportable surplus of fruits and vegetables and earn more foreign exchange, but it needed to improve the inefficient marketing and export infrastructure and maintain the quality of export items.

Pakistan relies heavily on agriculture exports and is at a great disadvantage in the competition against heavily subsidized agricultural products of the developed nations.

According to the committee, the predicted changes in environment, especially the changing atmospheric conditions and greenhouse gases, can have a great impact on agricultural production and supply patterns in the future.

The committee emphasized proper comprehension of the role of information technology which was becoming increasingly important in the modern context of technological revolution. Agricultural information is a key to more production and sustainable agriculture. It promotes the efficiency and effectiveness of production and customer services and is capable of providing quick and cheap information to all those concerned. It can also serve as a basis for a forecasting and early warning programme that is at the heart of food security. Above all, modern IT techniques can play a crucial role in farmer’s education and communication of vital weather information for agronomic operations in different sub-ecological zones.

The committee further noted that agricultural research prioritization was the first step at the planning level in the direction of developing an effective agricultural research system. Also, this exercise is essential to make optimum use of the scarce human and financial resources available for research and avoid dilution of efforts.

“We have benefited from earlier efforts and used the priorities set by NMARP and PRMPs as benchmarks to suggest some changes. About 150 progressive farmers from all over the Punjab were also consulted in the process,” the committee added.

In view of gaps in the yield of various crops, the NCA emphasized that the available technology and research findings could boost national production manifold provided that technology transfer functions of various agencies were improved.

The committee further pointed out that for national and provincial agricultural research, no distinction has been made among long, medium, and short-term priorities, because priorities need to be revised after every five years.

Similarly, recommendations have been confined to prioritizing research areas while details of various research projects have been left to individual research institutes.

The committee proposed constitution of a permanent Steering Committee or the National Agricultural Research Coordination Committee for implementation of its proposals. Selection of lead institutes and collaborating institutes should be based on human resources and R&D infrastructure for high-priority R&D activities in each major discipline. In addition, a five-year timetable has been suggested for implementation of the recommendations.