Lauding various agriculture incentives announced by the Federal Government in the budget 2015-16 for facilitation and welfare of farmers community and growers, agriculture experts Misal Khan and Sajid Khan of Nowshera district told APP the announcement of interest-free loans to farmers has created widespread jubilations among the farmers community of Khyber Pakthunkhwa and Fata.
They said majority of farmers of Khyber Pakthunkhwa are very poor and can't efforts imports of modern machinery required for farm mechanization and high agriculture growth, thus making negative effects on the per acre production and low yield of agriculture productivity in the province.
The interest-free loans would greatly help the farmers to import modern machinery besides setting up of high powered solar tube-wells for irrigation purposes.
Due to energy shortfall, they said, power supply of most of the tube-wells is disconnected especially in summer season due to non-payment of electricity pending dues. Resultantly, the crops of rice, maize, sugarcane and vegetables are affected due to unavailability of irrigation water due to closure of electric run tube-wells.
The reduction in prices of agriculture output, inadequate infrastructure, uneconomic landholding, defective land tenure system, feudalism and energy shortfall have made negative effects on agriculture sector in KP, they added.
The markup free loans scheme of the Federal Government, they said, would help the farmers in installation of 30,000 solar powered tube-wells ultimately facilitate the farmers belonged to KP and Fata.
The loan facility would address problems of closure of electric run tube-wells but would facilitate farmers to move towards installation of solar tube-wells for irrigation purposes to counter the problem of load-shedding .
They agriculturists and farmers expressed the hope that the loans would be strictly issued on merit and solar tube wells would be installed at suitable places on the recommendations of farmers community.