The National Assembly Special Committee on Agricultural Products stressed on Thursday the need for taking urgent measures to ensure production and availability of high-yielding and disease-resistant certified seeds for cotton and wheat.
Presided by Speaker National Assembly, Asad Qaiser at the Parliament House, the committee recommended making an early announcement and an upward revision of the intervention price for cotton. It vowed to develop a new regulatory framework to stop adulteration of agricultural inputs. It also recommended concrete lining of Balochistan’s Kachhi Canal in Phase-II and Phase-III of the Kachhi Canal project and establishing a link channel between PAT Feeder and Kachhi Canal. It was highlighted that the initiative would bring an additional 0.7 million acres of barren land under cultivation.
The panel members highlighted that the future of Pakistan’s food security and agricultural growth was inherently linked to quality seed production as Pakistan continued to lag in terms of the latest seed varieties and higher yields. They stated that owing to yield stagnation, Pakistan was consistently losing its competitive advantage in major crops.
The panel was informed that a ministerial committee had been established to negotiate with multinational companies to import high-quality cotton seeds and facilitate transferring the latest seed technology. It was informed that cotton was the most important crop of Pakistan and an early announcement of intervention price would help farmers grow the crop on a large scale. The committee was informed that last year’s intervention price had a significant effect on increasing production.
The members urged the relevant departments to ensure a timely supply of quality inputs fertilizers and pesticides. It was stressed that the federal government and the provincial governments should jointly evolve an institutional and legal framework to ensure zero tolerance for adulteration of agricultural inputs.
