ISLAMABAD: Agricul-ture transformation plan envisages protection of growers as well as consumers and local industry as it aimed at introducing the latest intervention to achieve sustainable agriculture development and reduce reliance on imported food items.
Addressing at a press conference, Special Assistant to the Prime Minister (SAPM) on Food Security Jamshed Iqbal Cheema said that there are three main objectives of transformation plan and to achieve these objectives uncultivated land of Balochistan, FATA, and G-B as well as Pothar would be brought under cultivation.
The government is providing all kind of assistance in the FATA, while in South Punjab pulses and olive oil, fruits and vegetable, livestock, and corn are being cultivated.
He said the first objective is import substitution of edible oil worth $4 billion as well as some pulses etc, while the second objective is to raise the income of farmers, and third and last goal of the transformation plan is to provide raw material to the industry.
“We are going to solve the problem of food insecurity and turn the country into a food exporting country. Milk would be made pure after testing and cow breed would be increased,” he added.
He said that in this regard, the agriculture land mapping had been completed in Punjab, Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa (KP), Balochistan, and Gilgit-Baltistan (G-B), and identified areas for production of different high value crops, livestock, fruits, and vegetables.
Cheema further said the government is adopting Chinese model of agriculture with a focus on cultivating vegetables, fruits etc, and tea is being cultivated in the KP and G-B.
About the current government, he informed that water conservation was on the top in government’s agriculture reforms agenda, adding that small and medium size dams were being constructed in Balochistan.
Cheema said that agriculture sector development was the topmost priority of the present government and it had allocated abundant resource of Rs 62 billion for the development in the budget for the next fiscal year.
Copyright Business Recorder, 2021