LAHORE, May 3: Federal Food, Agriculture and Livestock Minister Sikandar Hayat Khan Bosan on Tuesday advised manufacturers and retailers of agricultural inputs to rationalize prices and ensure quality of their products. Speaking at the inaugural session of international conference on higher national productivity in food and agriculture, he said the high cost of inputs — fertilizer, farm machinery, pesticides, seeds — and problem of quality assurance had become a greatest challenge for the sector.

“The availability of inputs at affordable prices is a must for raising farmers’ income and productivity,” he said.

Bosan emphasized on the need for creating awareness about high productivity to improve performance of agriculture and related industries.

The agriculture sector is passing through a critical phase of its development. It is moving from conventional form of production to value-added agro-based industries. The change will result in high income for farmers and higher productivity.

The performance of agriculture this year is extremely encouraging. Higher productivity was achieved owing to suitable climatic conditions, he said.

“Farmers’ positive response to government policy initiatives and effective technical support extended by the public sector are the other reasons for it.”

The minister said the government was striving for a sustainable five per cent annual growth rate in the agriculture sector. The target would be achieved by improving productivity of crops, livestock and other sub-sectors, he said.

Domestic private sector had made substantial investment in construction of grain storage facilities in recent years, but still there was a vast scope for investment in this sector, he said.

Later talking to the press, the minister said the country was going to harvest bumper wheat crop this year. To a query, he said there was a stability in prices of wheat-flour and sugar prices.

He hoped that the wheat price would come down in coming weeks once the harvesting picked up.

He claimed that the Trading Corporation of Pakistan was holding enough sugar stocks to cater domestic needs, therefore, the price would remain stable in the market.

Provincial Agriculture Marketing Minister Rana Qasim Noon said new opportunities for growth of agriculture sector were emerging.

He said the sector could not be developed without removing bottlenecks to provide suitable return of their produce to farmers.

The National Productivity Organization and its counterpart Asian Productivity Organization have been focusing on the productivity issue over the years and it is a competitive advantage of nations in the new millennium.