The government has formed six working groups to formulate suggestions in order to address issues and challenges being faced by the farming community in the country on the back drop of decreasing trend of the agriculture commodities in international market. Federal Minister for Planning, Development and Reforms, Professor Ahsan Iqbal told media after attending a meeting on issues of agriculture sector in the country here at Planning Commission last Wednesday.
The minister said that six working groups on different crops including wheat, rice, cotton, maize, sugarcane, vegetables and agri-inputs were formed during the meeting. These working groups, he said would put forward their recommendations to take appropriate steps for safeguarding the local farming community and agriculture sector from the crisis created after down fall of the prices of agri- commodities in international market, he remarked.
The recommendations, he said would be submitted before the Prime Minister for his approval adding that all efforts would be made to overcome the crisis and for the development of the sector, he added. Crisis of decreasing price trend of agriculture products was an international crisis and farmers of other countries like Vietnam, Thailand and India were also facing the similar challenges, he observed.
Steps would be taken to introduce modern technologies and value addition of agri-produces to compete with the products of other countries in international market to capture the due share of exports. The minister said that recently the export opportunities for local agri- products were expended to the markets of Iran and Russia adding that Russia has shown interest to import rice and potatoes from Pakistan.
