ISLAMABAD, Nov 21 (APP): The National Assembly (NA) Special Committee on Agricultural Products on Monday unanimously elected the NA Speaker Raja Pervaiz Ashraf as its Chairman.
Thanking the members for reposing confidence in him, the NA speaker said given the recent evolving dynamics within the country and beyond, the agenda of food security and agricultural development had assumed central importance. He expressed the hope that, given the support of the seasoned members of NA, the committee would strive to make better decisions to accelerate Pakistan’s agro-economic growth.
The members expressed that the election of the NA speaker as Chairman of the Special Committee on Agricultural Products would add significant value to the decisions pertaining to agriculture sector.
The members regretted that despite being an agrarian economy, Pakistan relied on imported agricultural products to meet its domestic demand.
The members underlined the need to address long-standing problem of farmers’ access to cheap credit, improved research to enhance productivity and improved mechanisms for profitability of the farmers.
The committee deliberated on the delay in fixing the support prices for wheat and sugarcane and sugarcane crushing season respectively.
The members regretted that given the deadlock regarding permission to export surplus sugar and subsequent delay in initiating sugarcane crushing was causing considerable losses to the poor farmers.
They urged the government to negotiate with the sugar mills owners, verify the available stock and grant them the permission to export the surplus sugar. Doing so would permit them initiate sugarcane crushing on time and thus relieve the farmers, they added.
The Minister for National Food Security and Research maintained that the without a credible and verifiable evidence of surplus stock, the government could not grant the permission to export sugar.
Citing previous precedents, he said sugar export permission was granted, however, owing to subsequent shortage in the country, expensive sugar imports were undertaken.
The members urged the minister to adopt a flexible approach in negotiating with the sugar mills owners and devise a mechanism to export verified surplus sugar.
He maintained that meeting in this regard had been convened on Thursday.
One of the members maintained that cartelization and monopolization within the sugar industry and their ability to influence state policies for their personal gains was an unaddressed question.
She urged the Ministry of National Food Security and Research to devise mechanisms to encourage other forms of ownership in the sugar industry.
They members stated that early announcement of the support prices, before sowing, signaled better profitability and incentives to cultivate crops.
It was highlighted that so far the federal government had not reached a conclusive decision with regards to support price for wheat.
The Minister National Food Security and Research said the provinces’ divergent decisions caused the delay in setting the support prices.
He assured that the matter would be resolved in the next meeting of the Cabinet.
He also added that the package for the agriculture sector is also pending the meeting of the Cabinet.
The meeting was attended by NA Speaker Raja Pervaiz Ashraf, Minister for National Food Security and Research, Tariq Basheer Cheema, Minister for Commerce, Syed Naveed Qamar, Nawab Sher Wassi, Dr. Nafeesa Shah, Mehnaz Akbar Aziz, Wajeeha Qamar, Mir Khan Muhammad Jamali, Sajid Mehdi, Muhammad Moeen Wattoo, Syed Abrar Ali Shah, Dr. Muhammad Afzal Khan Dhandla and Zulfiqar Ali Behan.
