-Seeks crop insurance system to protect farmers against crop failure
Staff Report
ISLAMABAD: President Dr Arif Alvi on Monday urged the need for a close, meaningful and effective collaboration among the federal and provincial governments, local authorities, and public and private sector to promote investment in the mining and minerals sectors of the country.
He said this while addressing a meeting of various private and public sector stakeholders relating to the exploration of minerals in Pakistan, at Aiwan-e-Sadr.
Senior officials of the ministry of energy (petroleum division), ministry of commerce, federal board of revenue, and the government of Gilgit-Baltistan, attended the meeting.
The president said Pakistan was bestowed with enormous high-quality mineral resources, like coal, copper, gold, gemstones, silver and rare metals which needed to be explored and mined by employing information-technology-based modern mining tools and processes to realize the full potential of the mining sector of the country to bring visible change in the socio-economic development of the country.
He said that different parts of Pakistan were rich in minerals, oils, natural gas, rare metals and nuclear substances as well as precious metals, like gold, silver, copper, zinc and many other minerals of industrial use which, if exploited fully by creating state of the art refining and metallurgical processes in the country, could help Pakistan meet the local demand of the industry and would earn precious foreign exchange by exporting value-added mineral and metal products.
The president said that issues relating to licensing for mining processes needed to be evolved, exports of precious metal appliances and withholding taxation policy needed to be targeted for promoting the exploration of this hidden wealth, besides following the international standards and best practices of mining and exploration.
President emphasised the need for using satellite imagery technology and the use of modern mineral detection, analysis and exploration technologies and training of relevant human resources in modern and safe mining methods to make mining processes efficient, effective and safe.
He called upon the stakeholders to conduct workshops and seminars to discuss and review the existing policies and relevant laws, rules and procedures and identify the loopholes and develop a comprehensive set of proposals and recommendations for government to factor in while devising policies for the growth and development of mining and mineral explorations in the country.
The president underlined the need to develop an effective research and development mechanism for exploration, refining and creation of value-added mineral products by looping in relevant universities and research and development departments of the public and private sectors.
He also called for strengthening the capability and effectiveness of border control to stop unlawful exports and import of mineral and metal-based products to protect the local industry.
Separately, Dr Arif Alvi called for a user-friendly crop insurance system to protect the farmers against the crop failure and the losses caused by manmade or natural calamities, especially in the wake of current global-warming-induced super floods in Pakistan.
The president, chairing a meeting regarding crop insurance, said that comprehensive measures to prevent the adverse impacts of climate change should be adopted on a priority basis to save the agriculture sector.
The president called upon the insurance industry to start a comprehensive nationwide consultation and discussion program involving all stakeholders through seminars and workshops.
He said that the best practices and successful crop insurance models of regional and international countries should be taken as benchmarks to get inputs for developing a comprehensive market-based and technology-laced self-sustainable crop insurance policy.
He said that collaborations with the agriculture universities of the country should also be developed in holding seminars and workshops and conducting relevant extensive research work to help the insurance stakeholders base their policy and products on solid research and authentic database.
President Alvi asked the insurance sector and other stakeholders to particularly focus on 93% of farmers in Pakistan who had land holdings of 12.5 acres or less while introducing their insurance products.
He said that farmers’ contributions should be linked, either with crop input or output as deemed appropriate, and the welfare and well-being of the farmers should be ensured.
He said that in order to encourage farmers to voluntarily opt for crop insurance, the State Bank of Pakistan may advise the banks to increase their portfolio of agriculture loans specifically targeting subsistence farmers, having land holdings of 12.5 acres or less.
The president said that all stakeholders, like banks, insurance companies, and federal and provincial governments, should launch an awareness campaign, by holding seminars, workshops, fairs and road shows, in the target areas.
The campaign should also be held through the launch of advertisement campaigns in the conventional and social media for educating the farmers to voluntarily opt for crop insurance and to protect them from crop failure and destruction of crops during manmade or natural calamities.
President Alvi said that satellite imagery for determining the weather patterns, authentic database, and sophisticated Artificial Intelligence-based technologies should be used to plan insurance products and for giving compensation to the farmers affected by crop failure and destruction of crops.
