LAHORE: Finance Minister Muhammad Aurangzeb has said that Pakistan’s current economic outlook can help the private and financial sectors transform agriculture in the country.

He was speaking at the concluding session of ‘Agri Connections 2024’ at the Expo Centre on Thursday.

“Robust growth in the agriculture sector, declining inflation rates, strong value of the rupee, strong remittance inflows, rising forex reserves, and a buoyant stock market are stable macroeconomic indicators underscoring the country’s improved economic outlook,” he said.

“We want to facilitate farm machinery service providers, and we need a major scale-up of modern agri warehousing under the EWRs financing that allows agri commodities to be traded nationally and internationally,” said the minister.

Ahsan Rana, an Associate Professor at LUMS, said the country’s overly regulated seed system is unsuitable for agriculture’s growth.

“Cumbersome procedures have made our seed system depend on the government, making Pakistan stay in the lowest ranks in this domain according to the World Bank.”

He said that compliance should be voluntary, enforcement should be limited to few aberrations, a two-tier system for seed companies should be developed, and the regulator should become a facilitator.

Maria Saleem, GM Agri-Business, Fatima Group, said that an additional $18 billion can be generated by enhancing wheat yields per acre by freeing up 5 million acres of cotton land.

She added that Pakistan could earn $1.6bn by planting canola/raya on 5 million acres saved from the wheat area, as Pakistan imports 4 million tonnes of edible oil worth $4bn annually.

Published in Dawn, April 26th, 2024