State Bank of Pakistan aggressively pursuing its agenda of pushing the agriculture by facilitating the farmers and SMEs enabling them for value addition, increase the shelf life of exportable fruits and vegetable and reduce the import of edible oil thereby to support the rural farmers and uplift the living standards of rural community. This was stated by Economic Advisor of SBP Dr. Mushtaq Ali Khan while addressing the dean/directors of UAF here in new syndicate hall on Monday morning. Dr. Mushtaq Ali Khan apprised the UAF scientists that he along with his group members, striving hard to proactively focus on agriculture and of the view that the existing agricultural knowledge is needed to be tapped properly so that the potential growth could be materialized by taking researchers, industry and academia on board. He told SBP is looking forward to welcome the internees from UAF in the days to come. He told that his group is actually evaluating the progress already been made by SBP and trying to evolve a policy to promote the cultivation of oilseeds, canola, sunflower, and date palm in a bid to make the country self sufficient in edible oil.

Acting VC Prof. Dr. Muhammad Ashfaq urged the need to bridge the gulf between existing and the potential growth of agricultural commodities up to three folds by investing more resources on agriculture research, credit and introducing small packages for 95% small farmers of the country so as to transform the subsistence agriculture into a vibrant and prosperous sector of the country. He expressed his dismay over the declining trend of government allocations for education and said that world over education shares minimum 4% of GDP of any developing country but this year Pakistan reduced it upto 1.3% which badly hampered the growth momentum gained during the last decade. Referring towards allocation of Rs. 6.00 billion for agriculture by federal government, Dr. Ashfaq urged the government to support the agrarian economy by injecting more resource into it as it is the back boon of the national economy.

Dr. Muhammad Saleem Co-Director Development and Finance SBP told the participants that development of agriculture is one of SBP prime priorities. He informed that SBP holds one window operation at 51 districts of the country every year and used to conduct various programs in a way to facilitate the small farmers to get their loan in only one day. He revealed that SBP launched an awareness programs “zari mela” for the small farmers it extending its services for capacity building of farmers through organizing training programs by the help of agricultural credit officers.

Later the coordinator of the SBP visit Dr. Muhammad Jalal Arif took the delegation to Institute of Horticultural Sciences, and National Institute of Food Science & Technology where they expressed their interest in Post-Harvest technology, Mashoom cultivation, and essential oil extraction of Roza garden.