May 9, 2005	Monday	Rabi-ul-Awwal 29, 1426

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ISLAMABAD, May 8: The Asian Development Bank (ADB) has asked the government to come up with a mechanism to favour the small farmers by putting an end to its current pricing policies with a view to reducing rural poverty. Sources in the Ministry of Food, Agriculture and Livestock (Minfal) told Dawn here on Sunday that the bank had severe reservations over the ever-increasing ratio of poverty in the farmers’ community at the grass-roots level despite the government’s high claims of economic development over the past five years.

They said the bank had found that more than 33 per cent of the country’s poor were living in the cotton and wheat zones of Sindh and Punjab, while majority of the small farmers in the NWFP and Balochistan were still trapped in the cycle of poverty which proved that the government’s much-trumpeted macro-economic development could not trickle down to the rural farmers.

The majority of small farmers in Sindh, Punjab and the NWFP were unable to bear the high cost of fertilizers, pesticides, seeds and electricity consumed by the agriculture sector.

Therefore, the bank has asked the government to make improvement in these sectors by enabling the poor farmers to reduce the cost of production.

Sources said the bank has asked the government to implement minimum wage laws for agricultural labourers besides providing them non-wage benefits, including social security through legislation to reduce rural poverty.

The bank has found that wages in the rural areas declined in Pakistan despite the fact that a significant number of people migrated to the urban areas during the past three decades in search of better wages and job opportunities.

Sources said the bank has informed the government that transitory poverty could be reduced only through policy interventions aimed at levelling out income fluctuations besides the availability of micro-credit.

They said that the bank has proposed to the government that a reduction in chronic poverty was possible through large and sustained growth in household incomes.

They said officials at Minfal were preparing recommendations to accommodate some of the ADB’s fears by proposing a number of new projects in the forthcoming federal budget.

They said Minfal had prepared recommendations asking the federal government to make proper allocations for the proposed projects in order to trickle down modern methods of agriculture to the grass-roots level and ensure the supply of quality seeds to the farmers.

However, officials said Minfal had yet to prepare a strategy so as to move the federal government for various legislations regarding the economic stability of the small farmers.