Farmers concerned over slow pace of rehabilitation work in Swat

The Swat farmers fear the government has forgotten the rehabilitation process in the terrorism and flood ravaged valley, as uplift work has yet to take place to redevelop the agriculture sector there. "There is a scant job just done by the ANP led coalition government in the worst terrorism hit valley largely on cronyism and the deserved and affected farmers still running from pillar to post to get their ruined farms rebuilt," the valley's farmers told Business Recorder on phone.
The rehabilitation work is slow and people are out of their jobs since the Taliban ouster by Pakistani security forces from the valley, they said, adding that the other provinces had even completed rebuilding of the flood damaged farms. "We could not reach the least development level whereas the other provinces have successfully rehabilitated their farms, for their interest is larger," they said, adding that the Khyber Pukhtunkhwa province still needed a co-ordinated effort to accomplish the incomplete task.
According to the valley's agriculture experts, Swat still needs about $1 billion to reach its cultivation level and encourage the farmers to bring their concentration back to their orchards. They said the farmers needed a little support from the provincial government, which was developing of infrastructure, to return to their fields and attain increased farm productions.
Their estimated figures show that the farmers had suffered about Rs 22 billion losses during the war against Taliban and subsequently from the historic catastrophic floods that also badly ravaged the fields and villages of the other two provinces. The farmers for the damaged infrastructure are expected to have no businesses from their orchards and farms for the next five years, they said, adding that "the valley's main productions are fruit, vegetable and honey".
According to an estimate, about 50,000 acres of agriculture land had destroyed in the devastating floods of last year, making the local farmers of cereals, vegetables and fruits to grow their ravaged lands fully. "The war against Taliban and floods have ruined about 20 percent of fruit orchards out of 30,000 acres of the total fruit producing land of the valley," they believe, saying that "the apple, peach, strawberry, persimmon, walnut crops etc, businesses have badly suffered".
They said the agriculture labour had also suffered during the crisis and were still unable to find jobs for the orchards and farms could not resume activities as yet. Farmers urged both federal and provincial government to take note of the slow-paced rehabilitation work in the valley and introduce a huge financial package for the rebuilding process.