Agriculture policy 2005 : Objectives of the Agriculture Policy NWFP 2005

In view of the continues neglect of the agriculture sector in the past and realizing its importance for future growth, the Chief Minister, NWFP, constituted a committee under the Minister for Agriculture, Livestock and Cooperatives Department with the Chief Secretary NWFP, Secretary Agriculture and private sector stake-holders as members. The committee was tasked to suggest immediate policy measures which should have positive impact on the farming community and also come up with a comprehensive policy document for medium and long term interventions. The vision of the Chief Minister is to see a prosperous and food secured rural population with exportable surpluses to generate employment and income opportunities in the province.

• Food security/self sufficiency.
• Poverty reduction.
• Integration & Improvement of services delivery system.
• Capitalizing on the comparative advantage.
• Strengthening public private partnership.
• Participation of farming community in decision making.
• Conservation of water resources.
• Providing relief in tax regime.
• Gender Mainstreaming.

Agriculture is the major component of provincial economy on which more than 75% of rural population depends for their survival. However, the plight of the people engaged in agricultural occupation has aggravated over time as poverty incidence has increased in rural areas. One of the reasons for this pathetic situation of agriculture is because successive governments have paid little attention to this vital sector of economic importance. The real investment remained squeezed during the 1990s and operational budget was as low as 10% of the establishment budget, which actually made the transfer of technology process ineffective. Similar was the position of research and development.

Less attention of the policy makers and little investment in agriculture sector coupled with associated factors; the following serious problems encounter growth and development in agriculture making the sector unprofitable for farming community especially the small farmers, which needed an immediate policy response to ameliorate the situation in the interest of farming community as well as the provincial economy;

NWFP is sheltering a population of more than 20 million people. The major portion of this population i.e. about 83% is dwelling in rural areas putting a tremendous pressure on land resources. To cater for the livelihood needs of this mammoth population, the province possesses 10.17 million hectares of land. However, the cultivable area is 2.75 million hectare. Out of cultivable area only 1.8 million hectare is cultivated where as 1.08 million hectare is cultivable waste. The major chunk of cultivated land is rainfed which constitute 49% of the cultivated area. This scenario resulted in a situation where 94% farms are now below the range of 12.5 acres, which is a subsistence farm level.

The land tenure system in the NWFP can be classified into three categories, i.e. 58% farm area is operated by owners while 27% and 15% farms area is cultivated by owners-cum-tenants and tenants respectively. Due to great diversity in climate and soils, NWFP grows over 42 crops; the major ones being wheat, rice, barley, maize, sugarcane, tobacco, rape & mustard, groundnut, pulses, vegetables and fruits. The major crops occupy nearly 90% of the total cropped area and play an important role in sustaining the living of the rural population.

Livestock farming is also a dominant occupation of the farming community with more than 15 million animal heads and about 22 million poultry birds’ habituating the province. However, this occupation is mostly to supplement family nutritional and cash requirement. The capitalist trend in this sector is still lacking resulting in weak & non-descriptive breeds with low level of milk and meat productivity.

Poverty incidence and trends in NWFP reflecting 44% rural population living below poverty line shows disappointing results of recent economic growth, declining job opportunities and a range of natural resource problems. The perceived causes of these high poverty levels included a variety of factors such as low level of agricultural yields and livestock productivity due to use of obsolete technology, drought and geographic isolation. The development challenges for the NWFP, therefore demand achieving sustainable economic growth particularly in rural areas through the development of agriculture and livestock sectors alongwith exploiting other opportunities.

With special reference to agriculture sector, the areas of grave concern for NWFP are rainfed cultivated land, cultivable wasteland, fragmented and un-economical land holdings, weak coordination amongst various tiers of the Agriculture department, weak organizational trends amongst farming community, in-efficient utilization of water resources, non-availability of good quality seed, high cost of fertilizers and pesticides, inadequate technical capacity of the department coupled with obsolete extension methodologies, lack of agricultural marketing infrastructure, lack of gender mainstreaming, absence of rural based agricultural processing units, lack of health & management coverage for animals, low productivity of livestock, burden of multiple agricultural taxes and absence of an enabling environment for private sector investment.

In view of the continues neglect of the agriculture sector in the past and realizing its importance for future growth, the Chief Minister, NWFP, constituted a committee under the Minister for Agriculture, Livestock and Cooperatives Department with the Chief Secretary NWFP, Secretary Agriculture and private sector stake-holders as members. The committee was tasked to suggest immediate policy measures which should have positive impact on the farming community and also come up with a comprehensive policy document for medium and long term interventions. The vision of the Chief Minister is to see a prosperous and food secured rural population with exportable surpluses to generate employment and income opportunities in the province.

• Food security/self sufficiency.
• Poverty reduction.
• Integration & Improvement of services delivery system.
• Capitalizing on the comparative advantage.
• Strengthening public private partnership.
• Participation of farming community in decision making.
• Conservation of water resources.
• Providing relief in tax regime.
• Gender Mainstreaming.

Realizing the foregoing scenario, the provincial government under the able guidance of Chief Minster, NWFP gave serious thought to the formulation of Sustainable Agricultural Policy. It is no doubt a historic step, which on the one hand is likely to bring positive economic changes in the rural economy particularly for the small farmers while on the other hand it will help reduce the risk of food security. The current policy truly reflects the vision of the Chief Minister, NWFP and his team. In terms of the comparative advantage of the province especially in horticulture, cash crops and livestock sector, with little efforts a lot can be done to trigger the economy and create multiplier effects. The weakness of the province like the deficit situation in food grain can also be addressed through provision of quality inputs, improved extension services and better management practices.
The agricultural policy NWFP 2005 reflects the aspirations of the agriculture sector stakeholders, who were involved in the consultation process. Besides formation of various groups to get input on various aspects of the agriculture sector, the grass root communities were also involved in the process through a survey programme for which survey forms were distributed and responses were collected from each district through District Coordination Officers. The interventions have, therefore, the backing of farming /livestock community and are based on the felt needs of sector.

The policy formulation involved the following steps; .