Pak likely to allocate PR 20.3-bn for agro projects

Islamabad: The government has announced allocation of Rs 20.3 billion in the budget 2008-09 for the development projects of the Food Ministry including Rs 12 billion for irrigation development projects.

There are 10 new projects of the ministry that are to be initiated in 2008-09 and total allocation of funds in this regard is Rs 1.5 billion. While the total number of ongoing projects of the food ministry is 56 for which Rs 19 billion have been allocated in 2008-09.

The government has also decided to start a project, 'Biological Control of Major Cotton Pests in Pakistan with Emphasis on Mealy bug' with the total cost of Rs 150 million. In order to avoid the pesticides shortage in 2008-09, a project, 'National Pesticides Residues Monitoring System' will be initiated with Rs 20 million.

The government has decided to start 'Wheat Maximisation Programme' with total cost of Rs 500 million in order to meet wheat shortage in the domestic market.

To encourage the farming community to grow more crops, a programme, 'Agriculture Sector Development Loan' has been planned with total cost of Rs 200 million.

A target of 4.8 percent of agriculture growth was fixed for 2007-08 and to achieve this target, an amount of Rs 15.8 billion was allocated in PSDP and according to an estimation of the government about 85 percent has been utilised in this regard.

Wheat production declined by 9.1 percent in 2007-08 against the target of 24 million tons and 6.3 percent against 2006-07 achievement. The main reason behind the decline was insufficient fertiliser use due to high prices in both international and domestic market, unfavourable weather conditions, low water availability during Rabi and delay in announcement of support price.

The cotton crop also fell short of the fixed target of 11.7 million bales by 17 percent due to the menaces like mealy bug, Cotton Leaf Curl Virus (CLCV) and bollworms.

Rice production in 2007-08 surpassed production of 2006-07 by 2.3 percent but was unable to achieve the target of 5,721 thousand tons and a short fall of 2.8 percent was observed in this regard.

Like other grain crops, maize with production of 3,109 thousand tons in 2007-08 remained unable to achieve the target of 3,279 thousand tons indicating a short fall of 5.2 percent.

The production of meat and milk during 2007-08 was 34,058 and 2,727 thousand tons respectively depicting a growth of 3.2 and 4.2 percent against the achievements of 2006-07 respectively. The overall fish production during 2007-08 was 2.4 percent up to 640.1 million tons against the target of 625 million tons.

Agriculture credit disbursement is increasing every year. An inadequate amount of Rs 200 billion was fixed for 2007-08 against which during first ten months an amount of Rs 157 billion has been disbursed.