LAHORE, Dec 23: President Pervez Musharraf is right in his approach towards constructing dams, says Federal Food and Agriculture Minister Sikandar Hayat Bosan. Talking to newsmen at a seminar on “Wheat production” here on Friday, he said water belonged to farmers of the country and posterity would not forgive us if we put off dams as we did in the past.

About sugar industry, he squarely blamed it for creating crisis in the country. He said millers’ attitude towards farmers was the main problem, adding the farmers were now switching to the other crops. He said delayed or nonpayment had disheartened the farmers to the extent that they had dropped the crop from agriculture fiscal priority. The minister said he feared further drop in cane crop next year.

Talking about sugar millers in Sindh who stopped crushing in the middle of the season in protest against the newly-fixed price of Rs60 per maund, he said that the authorities had recently held a meeting with PSMA’s Sindh chapter to discuss the issue.

Earlier, speaking on the seminar, the minister claimed that agriculture was a priority sector for the government. It had extended a host of incentives to agro-based industries which had started bearing fruit. Recently a world-renowned company has agreed to invest huge money in Lahore, Okara and Karachi, he said.

The government has been acting on the advice of the farmers and will continue to do so in future as well, he said. He said the government had allocated Rs66 billion for the lining of watercourses and increased loan portfolio for farmers from Rs108 billion to Rs130 billion. The actual allocation under this head is Rs250 billion which will be attained gradually, he claimed.

The minister ruled out any immediate increase in wheat support price, saying the price had recently been increased from Rs400 to Rs415.

Farmers Associates Pakistan chairman Shah Mehmood Qureshi said that the government had failed to develop coordination among different agriculture ministries, especially agriculture and irrigation. The results are proving to be disastrous, he said. Delay in wheat sowing, he said, is one big failure on the part these ministries. He said they had failed to make the government increase support price of wheat according to calculations and recommendations of the Agriculture Prices Commission. They had also stupendously failed to help the government check the price of inputs like diesel and fertilizers, which were getting out of the reach of the farmers.

He said they had also failed to come up with new variety of wheat for better production. The farmers are still putting up with old varieties like Inqalab-91, which was introduced as early as 1991, he said, adding the variety had become exposed to pest and rust attacks and was fast losing commercial viability.

NWFP Agriculture Minister Fazal Rabbani lamented the fact that some district nazims in Punjab had become powerful enough to violate the Constitution during the procurement drive. The Constitution allows free movement of wheat but some nazims imposed a ban on it and shook the confidence of the other provinces, he said.