April 10, 2008	Thursday	Rabi-us-Sani 3, 1429

KARACHI, April 9: An international giant, Ikea, a company of Swedish origin, has agreed, in principle, to provide technical support to a project of the Ministry of Agriculture and Livestock to ensure compliance of global agricultural practices (GAP).

Dr Qadir Bux Baloch, Agriculture Development Executive Commissioner, told Dawn over telephone from Islamabad that the deal would be signed shortly between Ikea and the crop maximisation programme under which about 1,000 villages would be targeted to boost agricultural production, with an active involvement of the farming community.

According to him, the current world scenario is not so congenial for the country because Pakistan’s farming practices are perceived to be too primitive and chaotic.

“To be able to make the country’s presence felt internationally in the commodity market, the adoption of certain standards in agriculture production has become absolutely necessary.”

The collaboration with a global player would address the issue of meeting international standards in commodity trade.

Under the programme, the ministry has identified certain districts to launch this extensive programme that aims to empower the farming community by ensuring that it shares the benefits of better international prices and play its role in raising the agricultural production to feed the local demand and produce exportable surpluses.

He said the said the company that had earlier been involved, in collaboration with the World Wildlife Programme on Integrated Pest Management (IPM) project of the ministry, had shown interest in raising the level of its involvement in the country.