ISLAMABAD: Finance Minister Ishaq Dar on Saturday tasked the Ministry of National Food Security and Research to formulate the national agricultural policy on priority basis for optimum use of natural resources to make the country self-sufficient in food.

“A holistic approach is needed for development of the agricultural sector, and the policy should aim towards small farmers to combat poverty in rural areas,” Dar told Minister for National Food Security and Research Sikandar Hayat Khan Bosan while chairing a meeting to review agricultural products prices and the strategy to ensure agricultural sector growth.

It is worth mentioning that since its creation in 2011, the ministry of national food security and research is functioning without a national policy direction, particularly to address key weakness such as the technology gaps and poor nutritional levels which affect all provinces, as well as a number of coordination activities.

A draft ‘agriculture and food security policy’ was released by the ministry in January 2013. Though the present government is completing its first year in power in June, it has so far been unable to finalise the policy.

While the policy is missing, both the World Bank and the Asian Development Bank in their most recent reports on Pakistan, pointed out that agricultural growth will miss its annual target of 2.7 per cent due to a drop in cotton output, which partly offset the improvement in sugarcane and rice crops.

Dar stressed that in order to meet the challenges of food insecurity and malnutrition, it was imperative to employ latest technological advancements and innovative techniques to improve the productivity of land.

Mr Bosan informed the meeting that although constitutionally, agriculture is a provincial responsibility, national issues such as the import and export of agricultural inputs and products, price setting, standardisation and quarantine issues, national research and inter provincial issues such as the rehabilitation, come under the ambit of the federal government.

The meeting discussed the upward trend in the prices of potato, and the finance minister was informed that there is almost 1.1 million tonnes of surplus potato and role of provincial governments is important to check hoarding and manipulation.

Dar agreed on devising a mechanism to control the prices and said that the middleman’s role should be managed in coordination with the provinces to control prices of agricultural products.

The meeting was also attended by Secretary National Food Security, Seerat Asghar Jaura; Chairman Pakistan Agricultural Research Council (PARC), Dr Iftikhar Ahmad; Advisor to the Finance Ministry, Rana Assad Amin and other officials.