LAHORE, Nov 13: Greater and frequent interaction between the Indian and Pakistani farmers would enable both the sides to benefit from each other and remove mistrust between the two nations, said Farmers Associate Pakistan (FAP) chairman Shah Mehmood Qureshi.

Talking to reporters after an interactive session between the FAP members and the visiting Indian farmers, led by Paramjit Singh, at Lahore Press Club, he said farmers on both sides of the divide were poor and in greater need of each other.

All the visiting farmers from the East Punjab individually addressed their Pakistani counterparts and shared their experiences with them.

Mr Deepak from Hoshiarpur said that Pakistan and India could share their experiences in kinno production. Pakistanis grow more kinno per hectare than their Indian counterparts. This could be one vital area where they could compliment each other.

India has a big market for kinno and Pakistan, which exports hardly 10 per cent of its total production, could exploit the Indian market. He said that in spite of being costly, kinno could fetch very good price in Indian market.

Mr Kesar Singh from Ludhiana stated that the Indian farmers were undertaking many steps to alleviate poverty. Many research organisations in India were conducting research trying to find solutions to indebtedness of farmers. There were also many studies on the contract farming. He said they did help in ascertaining the situation in the farming community in the Eastern Punjab.

Gulbeet Singh of Chandigarh, dealing in floriculture, claimed that developed countries like Sweden, the United States and Japan had flower usage of 40 to 60 flowers per man per year. The ratio is below one flower per man per year in the countries like India and Pakistan. With proper planning and marketing, one acre of flowers could fetch the farmer even up to Rs2 million every year.

The member of Indian agriculture pricing board Mahinder Singh said that the irony of Indian and Pakistani farmers was that only fiver per cent of them were progressive, with the rest not knowing what to sow at what time.

About organic vegetables, he said what was needed was extensive marketing set-up and results would automatically start showing after a few years.

The Executive Director of South Asian Free Media Association (SAFMA), Imtiaz Alam, also addressed farmers and stressed the need to encourage trade between the two Punjabs.

He said that northern states in India, including Punjab, had lower growth rate as compared to the southern states. He said that wish to open up for each other on both sides was dictated by economic imperatives.

The people of Indian Punjab knew that they could progress if trade started with Pakistan. The tourism sector could be the biggest beneficiary if both sides decided to soften their borders.

About the regional trade, he said that if 70 per cent of the ASEAN trade could take place within the organisation, there was no reason why the same could not be replicated in Saarc.

He proposed an 18km wide free zone strip between the Punjabs for holding exhibitions, cultural events and promoting tourism.

Mr Shah Mehmood Qureshi said that signing of South Asian Free Trade Agreement (Safta) showed that both sides at least realised the importance of regional trade.

But, in order to make it a success, he said ways had to be found to make trade mutually beneficial. More than economic benefits, political and psychological barriers also had to bring down. Once both sides realised the mutual benefits of trade, there should not be much of a problem to carry forward the process, he hoped.