SAB warns locusts may grow into bigger threat than Covid-19, hit food security.

HYDERABAD -- The Sindh Abadgar Board (SAB) on Monday urged the federal and provincial governments to work together to counter locusts which might grow into a bigger threat than Covid-19 and cause food security issues with losses up to Rs500 billion as stipulated by the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) after a new wave of insects feared to assail the country from Africa in coming months.

In an online meeting presided over by Mehmood Nawaz Shah, the board discussed federal and provincial budgets for 2020-21 in detail, resolving that the federal government should announce allocations for its five-year Agriculture Emergency Programme and the Sindh government should increase allocations for agriculture credit from Rsibn to Rs25bn for small and medium size farms.

It said that while agriculture was devolved under the 18th Amendment, the federal policy and initiatives, however, had direct impact on the farm sector, including the Agriculture Emergency Programme, locust control, and import and export of agricultural produce etc.The SAB said the initiatives required close coordination between the federal and provincial governments as lack of it led to zero spending, like last year, when not a single rupee was spent in Sindh from Rs18bn out of Rs65bn on the programme. It said the Sindh government neither had followed its agriculture policy nor the policy-implementing steering committee held any meeting.

It said several proposals were presented to the federal and provincial governments about import substitution of edible oil where Pakistan spent over $3.2bn.

Import of edible oil and its seeds had doubled since 2014-15. It said cultivation in the area of oilseeds in Sindh had declined from 260,000ha to 80,0000ha.

The SAB has proposed fixation of minimum price, provision of quality seeds, and research and development to have sustained oilseed production in Sindh. It said that of the 15m tonnes of fruits and vegetables production in Pakistan, 30pc was wasted and 5pc-7pc processed.

It said there was a tremendous opportunity through the ChinaPakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) and Belt and Road (BRI) to take advantage of the creation of specialised horticultural valuechains having infrastructure with incentive and credit available to encourage value-added horticultural products. Pakistan could easily get to $500m horticultural exports of fresh and value-added product, it adde d.

The meeting said no measures were announced to arrest decline in cotton...