LAHORE: Farmers have demanded that the government facilitate and subsidise the agriculture sector in the forthcoming budget for making the country and its economy strong.

In an appeal to the prime minister and other federal authorities, the Pakistan Kissan Ittehad (PKI) has argued that agriculture should be the first priority if the government is desirous of improving the national economy and increasing exports.

PKI president Khalid Mahmood Khokhar has urged the authorities to consider the farming community’s pleas for the budget 2019-20 for steering the country out of economic morass.

He demanded that the government subsidise pesticides by 40 per cent because its prices have doubled owing to closure of some factory in China as well as increase in the value of dollar.

He also suggested the budget makers to abolish 2pc general sales tax on all fertilisers to curtail the local production cost on a par with what exists in India and that the GST on farm machinery, particularly tractors, be reduced to zero from the present 5pc.

The farmer leader also argued for bringing down the electricity tariff for agriculture tubewells from the existing Rs5.35 per unit to Rs4 per unit while abolishing fuel price adjustment (FPA) charge and increasing agriculture research budget from 0.2 of the GDP to 1pc of the GDP.

Mr Khokhar demanded fixing support price for all major crops – cotton, rice, potato, maiz, gram – like the practice in all other countries and binding the Trade Corporation of Pakistan to procure at least two million bales of cotton and for the purpose allocation should be made in the budget.

To resolve financial crunch in the agriculture sector, he suggested curtailing down the mark-up ratio for farm loans to 5pc and making it mandatory for all banks to issue loan at least up to 50pc of the value of the land of the loan seeker.

Published in Dawn, May 21st, 2019