News: Government accords top priority to horticulture sector
Name of NewsPaper: The Nation
Date of Publication: Friday, 28 September, 2007
URL: http://nation.com.pk/daily/sep-2007/28/bnews4.php

IRFAN BUKHARI
ISLAMABAD - Advisor to PM on Finance Dr Salman Shah urged the Competitive Support Fund (CSF) to undertake more specific work on horticulture, a sub-sector of agriculture. “The government has accorded top priority to the horticulture sector,” he stated this while chairing the second meeting of the Task Force on Horticulture, Finance and Competitiveness here on Thursday.

Dr Salman Shah briefed the Task Force members that the Competitiveness Support Fund, a joint initiative of the Ministry of Finance, Government of Pakistan and United States Agency for International Development (USAID) was tasked by the Finance Ministry to undertake a comprehensive study entitled ‘The Competitive Advantage of the Food Processing Industry: Focus on Quality, Safety and Standards’.

“There must be a holistic, integrated and coordinated approach based on leadership by the key agencies, principally MinFAL/NAPHIS, PHDEB, the BOI and the State Bank of Pakistan,” Dr Shah added. He also emphasised the importance of the private sector, including the commercial banks, as key players in the development of this sector.

The Task Force members in their meeting decided that an implementation committee would be formed under the chairmanship of the Secretary, Ministry of Agriculture, Livestock and Fisheries (MinFAL). The committee would then form operational sub-committees to be chaired by the secretaries of relevant line ministries.

Speaking on the occasion, Arthur Bayhan, Chief Executive Officer of the Competitiveness Support Fund informed the Task Force that each sub-committee reported their findings to the implementation committee which are reflected in the final report made to the Task Force on September 12, 2007.

He also said, “The lackluster performance of horticulture industry is due to a multitude of factors. Geoffrey Quartermaine Bastin, Senior Advisor to the Competitiveness Support Fund (CSF) informed the members that the Sub-Committee on Production, Processing Marketing (SC-P) identified the major issues to be inadequate institutional mechanisms to support the industry and to allow the technical solutions to be understood and implemented.

Highlighting the recommendations of the Sub-Committee on Quality (SC-Q), Bastin, said that there is a need to rationalise.

Chairman of the Sub-Committee on Infrastructure (SC-I), Mushtaq Malik, Secretary Board of Investment identified lack of infrastructure, poor logistics especially cold storage, refrigerated transport and sea and air cargo, and insufficient processing capacity to deal with second and third grade fruits as the main infrastructure issues.

Dr Salman Shah in his concluding remarks told the sub-committees that we have to adopt a two pronged strategy: firstly, the quality of produce both for the domestic and international market should be improved by adopting good agricultural practices including disease-free planting materials and enforcing grades & quality standards, branding etc through pre-shipment inspection especially in case of exports; and secondly, to diversify product range.

Dr Shah also tasked the implementation committee to come up with at least two major processing projects to be developed in the production and processing areas, where entrepreneurs can approach the banks for financing. He also asked that at least three projects should be submitted to the Task Force in terms of Infrastructure development.

Dr Shah put special emphasis on the establishment of wholesales markets in major cities as mega projects as well.

The Sub-Committee on Quality was asked to work with Ministries of Health, Finance, MinFAL and Planning Commission to work on the food safety laws. Identifying the role of the banking sector, Dr Shah asked the banks and other financial institutions to look at the three aspects of the financing including production/farmer, export and projects.