PESHAWAR: The Federation of Pakistan Chambers of Commerce & Industry (FPCCI) noted on Tuesday that the agriculture sector–contributing around 25 percent to the GDP– was not receiving its due attention since the country’s reliance continued to remain on its primary produce for both exports and domestic usage. In a statement given here, FPCCI Regional Standing Committee on Horticulture Export Chairman, Ahmad Jawad, also said that the average annual growth of agriculture sector in Pakistan had dropped significantly from 5.4 percent during 1980-90 to 2.2 percent during 2011-16. The growth during the past fiscal year (2015-16) had plummeted to -0.2 percent mainly contributed by 6.3 percent decline in the crop sector. He also said that public sector’s capacity to invest in agriculture has also been on the decline. Due to lack of modernization in agriculture, the average growth in yields for cotton and wheat declined from 9 and 2.6 per cent respectively between 1980-90 to -2.2 and 1.4 per cent respectively between 2011-16. Prime Minister’s Agriculture Package of Rs 341 billion and extension of some fiscal incentives in the federal budget 2016-17 for the agriculture sector were not the solution to the problem. “We must admit that such short-term fiscal packages cannot be an answer to structural problems faced by the agriculturists”, he added. These problems included rising input costs faced by the farmers, indirect taxes on inputs and farm operations, subsidies and support price benefits not reaching the poorest of the poor in the farming sector, lack of innovation in seed varieties, missing technology to modernize the crop harvesting, cultivation, storage and marketing, weak access to agriculture credit and water shortages threatening the irrigated lands. “In order to reverse this dismal situation, it is important to put in place a carefully formulated long-term plan for the revival of this sector. The Planning Commission, Ministry of National Food Security and Research (MNFSR), provincial agriculture and agriculture extension departments, and provincial planning and development departments are best placed to collaborate and put forward a comprehensive national plan on agriculture for the approval of Council of Common Interests and the Parliament”, Jawad remarked. Similarly timely and formal credit to farmers remains a challenge. The government will need to review the markup rates faced by farmers on a regular basis. The private commercial banking sector also needs to be encouraged through interventions from Ministry of Finance and State Bank of Pakistan, to increase microcredit in agriculture extension. Jawad further said a revision of Fiscal Responsibility and Debt Limitation Act should protect food security allocation and direct these protected expenditures towards poorest districts in the country. One additional criterion for selection of these districts should be malnutrition. The government should also revisit the zero-hunger program which was halted due to budgetary constrained.