LAHORE, Dec 5: Farmers on Wednesday asked the federal government to either grant Rs12,000 per acre subsidy to growers on various inputs or impose Rs400 per 40kg regulatory duty on Indian imports to ensure a level playing field after granting the most favoured nation (MFN) status to India.
Speaking at a seminar on Farmers’ perspective on Pakistan-India Trade Liberalization, they said that “Pakistani farmers can compete with any farmers in the world if prices of inputs (fertilizer, diesel and electricity) are brought to their level.”
Being generally in favour of trade with India, they said that dynamics of farming sectors of both countries should be minutely examined before fully opening borders.
They asked authorities concerned to devise a separate trade policy for agriculture produces after consulting with representatives of farmers’ organization.
They urged the government not to waste Rs400 billion on public sector enterprises like PIA, Railway, power companies, Pakistan Steel and diverted the money to the agriculture sector for reducing prices of agriculture inputs.
Speakers adopted a joint resolution, warning the government that agriculture was the livelihood of 65 per cent of Pakistan population and imbalance in trade with India would mean suffering for country’s economy and depriving people from their livelihood.
What sort of liberalization policy is this if it doesn’t favour the country? Who are the people pushing it to the detriment of our economy? Are the negotiators competent enough to carve a fair and free trade policy for agriculture with India?
Tariq Bucha of FAP said: “We are not taking important trade related decision keeping in view the interest of agriculture and other sectors. Decisions are being taken in a hurry, leaving many crucial questions unanswered. There will be a visible negative impact on our agriculture sector due to free trade with India.”
He demanded formation of a committee comprising representatives of agriculture and allied sectors to look into various aspects of the Indo-Pak trade.
Ibrahim Mughal of Agri-Forum Pakistan (AFP) said sugarcane growers had to pay additional Rs115 billion alone on account of costly inputs if compared with production cost of Indian sugarcane farmers.
Similarly, he added, domestic vegetable growers had to pay Rs63 billion more against Indian vegetable farmers because of high input cost.
Hamid Malhi of Pakistan Growers Association said no farmer organisations or even selected farmers from all provinces were consulted before evolving the trade liberalisation policy with India.
Husain Jahania Gardezi, former provincial food minister, said the Indian production had been doubled while we had failed to improve quality and quantity of cotton.
He said we could not ignore interests of farmers while opening trade with India.
Sarfraz Ahmad Khan of KBP said the production of various pulses had showed dismal performance in Pakistan due to lack of policy initiatives.
He said India had devised a plan to enhance production of pulses by introducing quality seed, inter-cropping with Kharif crops and providing Rs20 per kg subsidy to farmers.
Abdul Basit, former LCCI vice-president and ex-chairman of PPA, said we had already lost the market of Afghanistan due to contrasting cost of production of poultry if compared with regional players.
He said in these circumstances, the poultry industry would have to be at the receiving end due to free trade with India.