PESHAWAR, March 29: The participants of a dialogue here on Thursday asked the government to revise the agriculture policy and support women farmers to boost economy of the province.  

Taking part in the dialogue, organised by ActionAid, executive director of Citizen Rights and Sustainable Development Idrees Kamal said that government was yet to implement the agriculture policy, announced in 2005.

The government should revise the agriculture policy and small-time farmers, especially women, should be focus of the revised policy.

Mohammad Khaliq of ActionAid discussed the role of small farmers in agriculture and rural development. He also highlighted different issues faced by poor growers, especially women farmers.

Jansher Khan from Buner said that there was a dire need to build the capacities of small farmers according to sustainable agriculture concept.

A woman farmer from Swabi shared her farming experience and demanded of the government to announce a long term organic farming programme for women growers.

“There is hardly any presence of women in agriculture and other related departments,” she added.

Another woman participant criticised government for ignoring the role of youth in development of agriculture. She said that majority of youth moved away from agriculture as there was no youth-specific agriculture sector programme.

She said that youth could play an active role in agriculture and rural development.

She added that they should develop youth networks at district and provincial levels to highlight small-scale farmers’ agriculture related issues.

Malik Sher Ali Khan from Swat said that small farmers in his area were not getting a reasonable price of their produce owing to lack of storage facilities. He proposed that government should provide them with storage facilities to reduce post harvest losses.

Zareef Khan from Rustam area of Mardan highlighted the importance of seed bank in protecting local seeds and ultimately ensuring household food security.

He said that government should launch a community-led seed bank to save small farmers from exploitation of multinational companies.

“A small farmer, who gets a produce despite all challenges, never receives reasonable price owing to inaccessibility to market,” said Liaqat Yousafzai, a resident of Matra village of Swabi.

Yousaf Shah appreciated establishment of farm service centres to provide agriculture inputs to farmers at their doorsteps. However, he said that small farmers were not benefiting from those centres.

Nasir Aziz of ActionAid said that most of the ‘food insecure people’ were living in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. He added that ‘food insecure people’ were spending 70 per cent of their expenditures on food and compromising on health and education.