{"id":321,"date":"2019-01-11T12:31:22","date_gmt":"2019-01-11T12:31:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/rootspakistan.org\/newweb\/?page_id=321"},"modified":"2019-01-15T11:47:25","modified_gmt":"2019-01-15T11:47:25","slug":"summary-of-presentation-on-agriculture-sector-by-dr-wajid-pirzada","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/rootspakistan.org\/index.php\/summary-of-presentation-on-agriculture-sector-by-dr-wajid-pirzada\/","title":{"rendered":"Summary of Presentation on Agriculture Sector by Dr. Wajid Pirzada"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Pre-Budget (2015-16) Seminar at Institute of Policy Studies Islamabad May 14, 2015<\/strong><\/p>\n

Summary of Presentation on Agriculture Sector by Dr. Wajid Pirzada CEO Roots Pakistan<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 (<\/strong>www.rootspakistan.org<\/strong><\/a>\u00a0)<\/strong><\/p>\n

While speaking as Guest speaker at Institute of Policy studies-IPS (http:\/\/www.ips.org.pk\/<\/a>) Islamabad in Pre-Budget seminar Dr.Pirzada Observed:<\/p>\n

\u2018Agriculture\u00a0\u00a0 sector in Pakistan, like in most of the other developing countries in the region, has had\u00a0\u00a0 mixed performance over years since creation of Pakistan. Public sector agricultural \u00a0policies primarily focused on self-sufficiency regime; and so called Green Revolutions era helped many national governments, including Pakistan, to meet this policy object at least in the short run.<\/p>\n

Policy Deficit:<\/strong><\/p>\n

Given the shortcomings of Green Revolution model-, especially resulting over-mining due to input intensification of natural resource base, at first place sustainability of self-sufficiency paradigm is at stake. Further, the policy context has entirely changed and the self-sufficiency paradigm has become irrelevant in the context of multilateral trading regime pursuing freer trade.<\/p>\n

Challenges:<\/strong><\/p>\n

The challenges posed by\u00a0\u00a0 growing number of more mouths to feed , growing urbanization, freer trade under multilateral trading system, climate change(CC) and unsustainable production & consumption; coupled with gradual realization of paradigm shift from agriculture through industry to services, is bound to impact negatively on agricultural contribution to GDP, sectoral employment capacity and agricultural profitability & food\/nutrition security.<\/p>\n

The estate sector expansion and debilitating land and water resources available for agriculture sector along with unsustainability of production can further compromise the development of agriculture on commercial scale.<\/p>\n

Way-Forward<\/strong>:<\/p>\n

To help arrest this likely trend, Pakistan needs to come out of both self-sufficiency & primary commodity production paradigm. To this end, provincial governments after 18th<\/sup>Constitutional Amendment in support from Federal Government have to make serious and concerted efforts to develop value-added agriculture sector, by mainstreaming value-chain management across all subsectors of agriculture, strictly adhering to and complying with international standards regime e.g. GAP, food safety & environmental standards, and investing in farm research to augment per unit productivity through innovative agricultural technologies & production. Investing in green skills & cleaner agricultural technologies will help smoothen Pakistan\u2019s agricultural development, on sustainable lines and in keeping with Green Economy requirements.<\/p>\n

Alongside credit access, rural based agro-based industrial & services development will help arrest urbanization and generate additional employment opportunities for youth in rural Pakistan.<\/p>\n

Finally targeted subsidies-to source inputs- fertilizer, electricity & water, for small & landless farmers; and compensatory policies like crop\/livestock insurance needs to be introduced.<\/p>\n

Recommendations:<\/strong><\/p>\n

    \n
  1. Investment in\u00a0value chain management<\/strong>: Duty free import of Equipment\u00a0\u00a0 e.g.\u00a0\u00a0 for Fruit\/ Mango pulp production and chillers for dairy sector<\/li>\n
  2. Investment in\u00a0SPS quality infrastructure<\/strong>- border control of diseases, food safety & veterinary public health<\/li>\n
  3. Establishment of\u00a0Early Warning Systems<\/strong>\u00a0for disasters & CC Mitigation- Famine\/drought, flooding and\u00a0CC observatory<\/strong>\u00a0in the country<\/li>\n
  4. Institutionalization of\u00a0compensatory policies<\/strong>\u00a0such as crop\/livestock insurance and targeted subsidies for resource poor farmers<\/li>\n
  5. Investment in\u00a0innovative & problem solving research<\/strong>\u00a0driven towards development goals\u2019<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    While responding to the presentation made by fellow panelist Dr. Pirzada demanded for provision of social pension, if not universal at least means-tested\u2019 for the elderly in Pakistan in the Finance Bill 2015-16.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    Pre-Budget (2015-16) Seminar at Institute of Policy Studies Islamabad May 14, 2015 Summary of Presentation on Agriculture Sector by Dr. Wajid Pirzada CEO Roots Pakistan \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 (www.rootspakistan.org\u00a0) While speaking as Guest speaker at Institute of Policy studies-IPS (http:\/\/www.ips.org.pk\/) Islamabad in Pre-Budget seminar Dr.Pirzada Observed: \u2018Agriculture\u00a0\u00a0 sector in Pakistan, like in most of the other developing […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-321","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/rootspakistan.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/321","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/rootspakistan.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/rootspakistan.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rootspakistan.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rootspakistan.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=321"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/rootspakistan.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/321\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":395,"href":"https:\/\/rootspakistan.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/321\/revisions\/395"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/rootspakistan.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=321"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}