By Asad Cheema
ISLAMABAD: Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) Vice President Fehmida Kausar Jamali on Thursday said world is now moving to ubiquitous technologies for the quality monitoring of agricultural produces from farm to fork. Speaking at seminar organized by Women Chamber of Commerce, PTI Vice President Fehmida said to ensure safe, affordable food and overcome farmers challenges around low productivity & income, it is critical to transform country agriculture with technology.
She said that there was a need to enable farmers to earn sustainable farm incomes and be globally competitive, adding that creating a transformational agricultural policy roadmap requires a collaborative approach between the government, industry, farmers and the society.
“It equally needs to focused on technological innovation, capacity building, market access and risk mitigation†, she added. She said that digital tools in agriculture can help farmers produce with less resources and make data-driven decisions in real-time, adding that new technologies like drones are revolutionising the world of smallholder farming.
“Drones can help identify weeds, pests and diseases and localise application of agrochemicals†, she said. She suggested that the Chambers of Commerce on behalf of industry and government may jointly go for the sustainable agriculture by popularising the use of science-based good agronomic practices, that are climate-smart and financially viable.
“Enhanced collaboration will be a critical imperative to transform Pakistan’s agriculture.†Fehmida said that “though government is already on way to identify specific areas along the agri value chain where public-private partnership (PPP) will benefit farmers. This will encourage the private sector to come forward with higher investments for innovation†.
“We must understand that agriculture sector’s development rate had already declined because of locust losses; the pandemic resulted in further lowering the line of development on a graph†, Fehmida Jamali said. She said that as Pakistan’s Gross Domestic Product growth for the year 2019-2020 was 3.2 percent, with agriculture growing by 2.9 percent, which was two-thirds of the total GDP growth for 2019-2020, adding that already the slowest GDP growth in Asia and we have to overcome it.
Vice President PTI said that the incumbent government is planning to come up with targeted input incentives, tailor-made schemes to boost farm production and a specific package for enhancing food exports at a time when a global recession is looming. “As the scarcity of water, poor access to bank finance and unbearably interest rates also have hit farmers badly†, she added.
