LAHORE, June 3: The Kissan Board Pakistan has threatened to start countrywide demonstrations before the announcement of provincial budgets if farmers are ignored in the federal budget.

KBP president Sadiq Khan Khakwani made the announcement while addressing a group of farmers who staged a demonstration outside the Lahore Press Club here on Saturday.

Protesting farmers also raised slogans and displayed banners and placards to press for the acceptance of their demands.

Speaking on the occasion, Mr Khakwani said that 70 per cent population depended for a living on agriculture but it was not being given due importance in economic policies.

He said the agriculture required to be given Rs300 billion in accordance with its share in the GDP. Small farmers should be given loans against three to four per cent service charges, indirect taxes should be waived on agricultural inputs and diesel besides reducing fertilizer prices by 40 per cent.

KBP secretary-general Sardar Zafar Hussain Khan said that desert and rain-fed area farmers should be provided drip and sprinkler irrigation facilities, ownership of military farmlands should be transferred to tenants and state lands should be allotted to cooperatives of agricultural graduates for farming.