FAISALABAD, Jan 19 (APP):Faisalabad Chamber of Commerce & Industry (FCCI) Acting President Dr Sajjad Arshad has stressed a comprehensive and balanced system covering all segments of agriculture and protecting financial interest of all concerned to enhance agricultural productivity and value addition.
He was addressing the concluding session of a seminar, organised by the National Productivity Organisation (NPO) on the topic of “Innovative business opportunities through business ties with Thailand’ here on Friday. He said that being an agrarian economy, country’s progress and prosperity was directly linked with the sector. He mentioned his visit to Hunza and said that there was excellent quality of apricot. They said they had been given proper training to plant apricot trees, harvesting and their dehydration. They said they were earlier selling apricot for Rs. 200 per kg, but after its dehydration, they were exporting it for Rs. 2,000 per kg.
Dr Sajjad said proper awareness and training should be provided about the entire chain of fruits and vegetables from their production, harvesting, dehydration and export with potential markets, etc. “They should also know that from where they could fetch maximum profit of their product,” he said and stressed the need for close liaison between all segments of the production chain. He said that generally isolated decisions were made which benefit one segment at the cost of another. He further said that bumper maize crop was harvested this year and Pakistan exported maize of $265 million against $85 million exports last year.
About soybean, the FCCI official said the local researchers had developed two varieties of soybean, while 50 per cent of the poultry industry was closed due to a ban on import of the commodity. He said people also suffered a lot as the prices of chicken and eggs almost doubled due to the mismanagement at the highest level. He said that being patriotic Pakistanis, people should discourage imports as new jobs were not created through the arrangement. He said special measures should be taken to inform growers when and which crop was needed with its well-defined quantity and the job should be entrusted to the agriculture officers of the extension department. He said the government incentivised the growers by enhancing minimum support price of wheat at Rs. 4,000 per maund and as a result we are expecting maximum yield. He said dehydration of fruits and crops would certainly increase profitability of farmers, but they must be given accurate and authentic information by publishing relevant material in easy Urdu.
Earlier, NPO Deputy Manager Fahad Imtiaz stressed the need to enhance production and quality of the products to market it at the global level after its dehydration. He said growers could benefit from successful experiment of Thailand in the specific field.
Later, Dr Sajjad Arshad presented the FCCI shield to Wajeh A Abbasi, General Manager NPO, who also reciprocated and gave away the NPO insignia to Haji Muhammad Aslam Bhalli, Vice President FCCI. Abdul Qayyum, Muhammad Asif and other speakers also addressed the different sessions of the seminar.
