THE Planning Commission is engaged in appraising a Rs1.7bn project for promoting value-added agricultural growth.

According to official sources, a committee set up to further evaluate the proposed project will soon make its presentation to the commission.

The priority areas identified for growth in agribusinesses include all the important agriculture subsectors, especially horticulture and livestock. Fruits and their value-added products will cover mango, date palm, citrus, banana, apricot and cherry, while in the livestock sector, the focus will be on beef production.

A cluster approach will be followed for developing specific agriculture value chains

For mango, the project will cover Multan, Khanewal and Muzaffargarh in Punjab, and Hyderabad, Mirpurkhas and Tando Allahyar in Sindh. The date palm project will be for Khairpur, Sukkur, Turbat and Panjgoor. The citrus project will be under taken in Sargodha and Mandi Bahauddin.

The banana project will be in Thatta, Hyderabad, Tando Allahyar, Matiari, Shaheed Benazirabad and Khairpur. The apricot and cherry project will be in Gilgit, Hunza-Nagar, Skardu, Ghizar and Diamer.

The beef-production project will be based in Sargodha, Rajanpur, Bahawalpur, Umerkot, Jafferabad and Charsadda.

There is huge potential for improvement in value-addition. A cluster approach will be followed for developing specific value chains, and they will be prioritised on the potential of different commodities under their agro-ecological zones and market prospects.

The project’s proposal has underpinned a strengthening system for technology generation in terms of inputs and farming practices, harvesting and post-harvesting systems, and processing packaging and handling as a major function of agricultural research for supporting value-addition in these clusters.

The targets will be achieved through a comprehensive intervention strategy in the production as well as other relevant value-chain components.

The project has been sponsored by the Ministry of National Food Security and Research, which believes that it has been designed on the experiences already gained by the Pakistan Agricultural Research Council (Parc) through its various research and development initiatives on value-chain in collaboration with international partners, including the International Center for Agricultural Research in the Dry Areas (Icarda) and the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO).

The project is related to the ‘Vision 2025’ priority area under “improving competitiveness in industry and trade transforming productive sectors into value-added and globally competitive sectors through facilitation, dynamic productivity growth, transparency, fairness, customer satisfaction, innovative and knowledge-based production mechanism”.

The director-general of the National Agricultural Centre, Dr Muhammad Azeem, said the project, which has a holistic economic approach for all these considerations, is expected to return considerable economic gains to the economy, both in the short and long run.

Best management practices would reduce negative externalities and the additional cost to the society, while additional benefits arising from higher productivity along with value-addition would reduce harvest and post-harvest losses.

Pakistani exports of the target commodities may enjoy better competitiveness due to their reduced cost and the possibility of capturing high-end markets.

Substantial economic impact is envisaged from the saving of post-harvest losses — which are to the tune of 15-45pc for different fruits and vegetables — through value-addition and processing (drying, product development), in addition to productivity enhancement, improved shelf life and import-substitution.

A significant proportion of the agricultural produce generally, particularly horticultural produce, is wasted due to a lack of storage capacity, inefficient supply linkages to local and international markets and poor planning for promotion of value-addition and development of semi-processing at the farm level.

Despite the fact that Pakistan is the fourth largest milk producer in the world, only 3-4pc of the total milk is currently processed. Likewise, the potential in terms of supply from horticulture is significantly high, with annual production of fruits and vegetables at over 15m tonnes.

Published in Dawn, Economic & Business, July 6th, 2015

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