PESHAWAR, Nov 18: The Sarhad Chamber of Agriculture has criticised the delay in implementation of the provincial agriculture policy that was announced by the NWFP chief minister almost a year ago.

President of the farmers’ representative body, Ihsanullah Khan, said that no groundwork had been done since the first agriculture policy was announced by the sitting NWFP government and no step has been taken for implementing the same.

Setting up of Farm Service Centres (FSC), the main component of the agriculture policy, he said, had already been covered under the cooperative societies act. About the three main cash crops of NWFP i.e. sugarcane, sugar beet and tobacco, he said, these crops were not receiving due attention of the government. He said that the sugarcane support price that was fixed by the NWFP government was too low and did not suit the farmers’ needs.

He suggested minimum interference of the provincial government in settling tobacco crop rates between dealers and tobacco companies and said that the companies and dealers should sit together and thrash out their differences over tobacco prices.

He said that he had written a number of letters to the provincial ministers for agriculture and excise and taxation apprising them the critical situation of the cash crops and remedial measures to be taken for its promotion. In this connection he also censured the performance of the Agriculture Extension Wing of the NWFP Agriculture Department which had spent only two per cent of its total outlay on the development of farm produce.

Since most of the farmers were not educated, the price of the fertiliser should be clearly printed on the bag as according to him the dealers charged Rs10 to Rs15 more than the booking rate, he said.—APP