December 14, 2006	Thursday	Ziqa'ad 22, 1427

ISLAMABAD, Dec 13: The government has finalised a new plan to enhance export competitiveness of the agriculture sector by promoting high quality products under a sustained value-addition programme.

Official sources told Dawn on Tuesday that the ministry of food, agricultural and livestock (MINFAL) is being provided additional Rs700 million to strengthen crop productivity by undertaking a massive research programme.

The major objective is to increase export of livestock and fisheries through a commercialization of Pakistan's agriculture sector. The focus will be on improved productivity and profitability of crops, food and food security, food safety and better nutrition.

The ministry will ensure diversification to horticulture, livestock and fisheries, enhancing productivity by narrowing yield gap, specialty of small farmers. In this regard, the MINFAL has been directed to ensure development of market infrastructure, ensure fair price to farmers and compliance with international quality standards without which Pakistan cannot adequately compete in the world export market.

The MINFAL will base its research activities in line with the Medium-Term Development Framework (MTDF) also by taking into account the development of horticulture and floriculture and poultry.

The objective of increasing exports of agricultural products will be achieved by strengthening agricultural institutions for research and extension and improve their linkages and coordination.

The research programme is designed to address the current and emerging needs of science based-agriculture development and poverty reduction in the rural areas as articulated in MTDF (2005-2010) and Vision-2030. It will also serve as a mechanism for immediate response to emerging research issues and problems in different production systems.

According to details, the government has envisaged a broad-based holistic approach to agricultural growth through science-based potentially efficient and equitable solutions focusing on more profitable farming, high productivity of crops, diversification to high value-added crops, and demand-based production, aggressive livestock development, promotion of agribusiness, particularly in high-value horticulture crops and the development of cash crops and fisheries products.

The agriculture sector in Pakistan has grown more complex over time with increasing challenges. In particular, constraints on the availability and quality of land and water, coupled with increasing natural resources degradation, represent major challenges.

]“Globalization has brought additional challenges with the need for such greater reliance on new crops, activities, institutions and public-private partnerships. A rapidly increasing population, particularly of small and poor farmers, and increasing skewed distribution of access to land and resources has created a much more pronounced need to move from resource-based to science-based agriculture.

However, Pakistan Agricultural Research Council (PARC) has identified major problems which are hurting the agriculture sector and needed to be given due attention. This includes decline in soil productivity due to salinity and water-logging, reduced soil fertility associated with low organic matter and intensive and exhaustive cropping, improper fertilizer management resulting in inefficient plant nutrition uptake and reduced yields, ineffective biological nitrogen fixation in most agro-ecological zones, poor soil tilt, reduced infiltration, and low crop water-use efficiency, accelerated water and wind erosion caused by inadequate conservation practices and environmental degradation associated with soil-related agricultural and industrial chemical effluents.