LAHORE, Sept 17: The Punjab agriculture department is preparing for the World Trade Organization regime by establishing grades and standards, product registration besides setting up laboratories.

This was stated by provincial agriculture secretary Arif Nadeem while briefing participants in the Punjab Development Forum here on Wednesday.

The Punjab government, he said, attaches utmost importance to the agriculture sector because it can put the country on the road to economic development.

He said at the time of partition Punjab produced only 2.636 million tons of wheat, 0.768 million tons of cotton, 0.253 million tons of rice, 3.972 million tons of sugar cane and only 0.168 million tons of maize. “This has grown up to 15.355 million tons of wheat, 7.664 million tons of cotton, 2.580 million tons of rice, 33.168 million tons of sugar cane and 0.883 million tons of maize in 2002-3.”

He claimed the Punjab share in the national agriculture was 80 per cent of wheat, 80.61 per cent of cotton, 58 per cent of rice, 66.20 per cent of sugar cane, 45.60 per cent of maize, 64 per cent of mango, 95 per cent of citrus, 90 per cent of potato and 16 per cent of onion. But the agriculture was beset with a host of problems and as a result, the gap between average national production and progressive farmers was much more than the desired level.

“For example, average farmers get 25.21 maunds of wheat, whereas the progressive farmers get 45 maunds — a gap of 44 per cent. Similarly, the cotton gap hovers at 39.10 per cent, paddy at 45 per cent and the maize tops the list with 89 per cent.”

He said in order to solve problems of agriculture, the government had chalked out a strategy with declared objectives of increasing production, enhancing agriculture sector’s contribution to balance of trade and improve the existing capacity.

In order to implement the same, the department was restructuring research by increasing human resource and incentives, granting autonomy to institutions where necessary, creating an apex body besides creating linkages among research, extension and farmers.

It had focused dissemination of technologies, starting village level farmers’ training programmes, management of crop through stakeholders’ participation and adaptive research farms, he said.

For food biosafety, it had moved to establish sanitary abattoirs, quarantines functions and certified laboratories. It had also initiated a development plan envisaging all above-mentioned goals with the help of a $350 million loan from the Asian Development Bank, he said.

Agriculture Business Development projects had also been conceived at a cost of $100 million. Some 68,000 water courses would be lined under the on-farm management. Soil would be laser levelled, water ponds prepared and irrigation schemes finalized for barrani areas under this scheme.