November 4, 2003	Tuesday	Ramazan 8, 1424

KARACHI, Nov 3: Farming community has received compliment from the State Bank of Pakistan for putting in greater effort to get maximum benefit out of improved availability of water last Rabi. It reversed the negative growth trend in agriculture during 2000 and 2001 into a positive 4.1 per cent growth during 2002-03.

Farmers were well rewarded for their labour and received significant price gains as well as from the increased productivity during last fiscal year. As compared to this situation in 02-03 the position in 01-02 was that farmers suffered on account of low prices and less productivity.

The SBP assessed total loss of Rs63.6 billion on account of adverse effect on crops output during three Rabis (during 00, 01 and 02 and two Kharifs 01 and 02). This loss, the SBP points out, was sufficient to cover the cost of a small dam with a capacity of 1.2 million acre feet of water and generation capacity of 750 megawatt.

The SBP annual report for 2002-03 released on Monday notes that there was no significant change in the area that was brought under cultivation due to belated increase in the water supply. Instead, the farmers resorted to higher use of inputs. It was the higher productivity in most of the important crops that pushed the index of the crop sub-sector up from 172 to 180 in fiscal year 02-03.

“It is expected that higher farm incomes this year will enable farmers to enhance their spending on production inputs for the next crops and invest in farm implements,” the report hopes.

The report attributes rejuvenation in agriculture to both increase in the private expenditure on fixed capital formation as well as rise in government’s development expenditure during the last fiscal year.

The better harvest during 02-03 not only improved the domestic availability of food items but also the supply of raw materials for processing industry, as well as providing larger surplus for the export.