LAHORE, Feb 2: Farmers of the Punjab on Sunday welcomed Asian Development Bank’s decision to allow the government to subsidize the agriculture sector and exhorted the World Bank and the IMF to follow ADB’s example.
Reacting to the news, a farmer from central Punjab said that all farmers’ bodies had been pleading against taxing the agriculture sector. Even the developed countries offer huge subsidies to their farmers. The US recently announced subsidies worth $80 billion for its farmers. The European Union offers almost 60 billion Euros to its agriculturists. Pakistan, he said, was perhaps the only country in the world, which did not subsidize agriculture and thus made its produce uncompetitive in the world market.
The government’s compliance with the dictates of the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund in this regard had always been an enigma for farmers, said an official of the Farmers Associate Pakistan (FAP). It seemed that the country was forced to abdicate its right to sovereign decision-making. The government failed to realise that these lending agencies offered only short-term respite that stifled growth in the long run, he said.
The government must make the lenders realise the cost of their decisions and their effect on the repayment capacity of the country, he asked, adding that the government must re-negotiate the terms and conditions of loans with other lending agencies and force them to follow the example set by the Asian Development bank.
An official of the Kissan Board Pakistan said that by blindly following decisions of the lending institutions, the country had reached a socially chaotic and economically perilous position. The government has to continuously tax and increase the cost of agriculture inputs. This enhances the cost of production and makes the farmers demand higher support prices, which, however, the government cannot allow because of the wider social impact of price hike. Resultantly, the agriculture sector has progressively lost its profitability. Farmers have become despondent. If the ADB could understand the cost of withdrawal of subsidies from the agriculture sector, why did not the others, he asked.
According to an official of the Kissan Movement, the government must stop taxing the sector. It could thus facilitate the farmers without offending the lenders he said.