LAHORE:Pakistan Kissan Ittehad (PKI) President Khalid Khokhar has criticised the government for excluding farmers from the budget-making process, saying the country's largest economic stakeholders continue to be ignored despite their key role in ensuring food security.
Addressing a press conference, he said farmers had stood by the country during difficult times but were neither treated as valued contributors nor consulted on policies affecting the agriculture sector.
Khokhar claimed that farmers had suffered losses worth trillions of rupees in recent years due to low crop prices. He said wheat growers alone incurred losses of about Rs2.2 trillion over the past two years.
This year, he added, wheat prices in South Punjab remained around Rs3,000 per maund or below, compared to the official rate of Rs3,500 per maund.He alleged that government policies at both the federal and provincial levels had severely affected the farming community and discouraged agricultural production.
Instead of addressing farmers’ problems, he said, policymakers were encouraging imports of agricultural commodities, with food and related imports reaching nearly $10 billion.The Pakistan Kissan Ittehad president said farmers received little support when market prices fell below production costs, increasing frustration among growers and weakening confidence in government policies.
He urged the government to include farmer representatives in the budget process and other agriculture-related policymaking forums, ensure fair crop prices and adopt farmer-friendly measures to strengthen the sector.
Khokhar warned that continued neglect of farmers’ concerns could threaten food security and rural livelihoods, stressing that cultivators should be recognised as equal partners in the country’s economic development.
