KARACHI: Sindh Chief Minister Syed Murad Ali Shah on Tuesday allocated Rs8 billion in the budget for the development of the agriculture sector through Benazir Hari Card.

Presiding over a joint meeting of the agriculture and irrigation departments at the CM House, he said growers needed to be incentivised so that they could grow wheat as a bumper crop apart from other crops as the Rabi season was starting.

The CM said Rs8 billion had been allocated to support the growers, particularly the small ones.

Mr Shah said that during the 2022 floods, the province had four million acres of standing Kharif crop, and 3.6 million acres of that area had been damaged.

He said the total loss during the floods amounted to Rs421 billion. “We are working to revitalise the agriculture sector and introduce new crops to reduce reliance on imported agricultural products,” he said.

The CM decided that the agriculture department would guide the farmers to grow those crops which could be exported. “We export rice and mostly import pulses,” he said, adding that pulses had a vast market domestically and even for export.

He directed the agriculture department to analyse the market for crops, especially those that were imported by the federal government, to advise local farmers to grow those crops instead. The meeting decided that the agriculture workshop of the agriculture department would be activated to provide agricultural machinery to the growers for land levelling, harvesting and other works. “We have to help growers to make their lands more fertile and adopt the methods of using appropriate water,” he said.

Mr Shah also directed the agriculture department to prepare a scheme to provide agricultural machinery to the growers on easy instalments. “Our grower must avail agricultural loans the banks are offering through different schemes,” he said.

Published in Dawn, October 9th, 2024