PESHAWAR: Speakers at a seminar on agricultural development have urged the federal government to take effective steps for facilitating farmers and encouraging investors in agriculture sector so as to ensure food security and alleviate poverty in the country.

The event was organised by Sustainable Energy and Economic Development (Seed) in collaboration with the Sarhad Chamber of Commerce and Industry and provincial agriculture department at a local hotel here on Tuesday.

The panelists said that the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa offered tremendous opportunities for the growth and productivity of the agriculture sector, but the farmers direly needed the government’s attention to meet their demands.

Panelists urge govt to encourage investors in agriculture sector

The key speakers on the occasion include provincial secretary agriculture Dr Mohammad Israr, SCCI president Hasnain Khurshid Ahmad, former president Sherbaz Bilour, KP Business Voice chief economist Ali Khizar and Seed Programme team leader Dr Umar Mukhtar.

Many experts, officials of the agriculture department, traders, researchers and farmers were in attendance.

They identified lack of processing facilities and proper investment in the development of post-harvest value chains as main issues creating hurdles to development of agriculture.

The other problems which deterred agricultural productivity from reaching its potential were infrastructure limitations such as inadequacy of transportation network, non-existence of storage and warehousing facilities near farmlands and lack of packaging, grading and sorting facilities as well as standardisation and certification support.

They said Khyber Pakhtunkhwa had the potential to enhance the production of a variety of crops, fruits and vegetables for direct consumption as well as to feed a large number of downstream industries across the country through the development of strong value chains.

The participants highlighted that the farm-to-market linkages were absent, restricting farmers from improving their productivity.

Lack of quality control, trained post-harvest labour and knowledge gaps all hinder the processing potential to materialise while limited financial resources and credit constraints exacerbate the environment.

Hasnain Khurshid said these hurdles were present across most agricultural commodities having potential for growth in KP and required efforts from the private and public sector for improvements.

Dr Israr said that agriculture was the key to socioeconomic uplift of the province as nearly 80 per cent of the population depended on the sector and related industries for their income.

Earlier, Dr Omar Mukhtar said that agricultural commodities in KP had tremendous potential in the domestic and export markets, if properly leveraged.

Published in Dawn, December 29th, 2021