MULTAN, June 13: Growers and their organizations have expressed a mixed reaction to the 'Kissan package' announced by President Pervez Musharraf on Thursday.

Welcoming incentives like low mark-up rate and withdrawal of special powers from Zarai Taraqiati Bank officials under the Land Revenue Act viz-a-viz arrest of the loan defaulters, the growers observed that by and large the package was a 'vague attempt' to address problems of the farming community.

In a survey conducted by this correspondent, a majority of the growers said the package was meant to benefit big farmers rather than small land holders who were actually backbone of economic activity in rural Pakistan with most of the cultivable land under their possession.

They said the package had rather disappointed them as neither the government had withdrawn GST on farm inputs nor it had rationalized diesel price and power tariff.

Farmers Associates of Pakistan chairman MNA Makhdoom Shah Mehmood Qureshi said the farming community had been demanding abolition of GST on farm inputs like fertilizers and pesticides as the levy had increased the growers' cost of production but the presidential package was silent on this account.

He said though the president had announced a reduction of Rs 100 in the DAP price, it had to be seen that how the market would respond when the new price would be effective by July 1.

He said although the government had admitted that urea demand would increase next year against its production, policymakers did not chalk out any plan to cope with the crisis.

Appreciating the Rs66 billion allocation for the lining of water courses, he said, however the president could not give a definite plan about the construction of more reservoirs to overcome the problem of water shortage in the country.

Cotton growers this year were facing the acute problem of water scarcity even at the sowing stage, he added. He said lowering down the mark-up rate on farm loans from 14 to 9 per cent was a step in right direction but it had to be brought down further as the industrial sector at present was enjoying loans against a mark-up ranging from 4 to 6 per cent per annum.

He said the presidential package was also silent about putting in place a flawless marketing mechanism for farm produces. In his concluding remarks, he termed the presidential package a half-baked effort to bring a change in the overall anti-grower policy framework of the present regime that had increased poverty in rural areas to an alarming proportion.

Progressive grower Saddique Akbar Bokhari said the withdrawal of the ZTBL special powers to arrest the defaulters was a decision that would go a long way in restoring self-respect of the farming community.

He said otherwise the package had nothing for the small growers as they were not expected to reap benefit of the duty incentives announced on the import of heavy duty tractors of 100 and above horse powers.

He said a high agriculture growth rate could only be achieved by facilitating small growers. He said cotton was the mainstay of country's agro-based economy and more than 50 per cent of the area under cotton was cultivated by small growers.

He said small growers picked hardly eight to 12 maunds of cotton per acre against the progressive growers' average per acre yield of 20 to 30 maunds only due to a disparity in agronomic practices and access to bank loans and subsequent mechanised farming.

Small Growers Association chairman Ishtiaq Hussain Jaffri termed the 'Kissan package' a gimmick to hoodwink the unprivileged small growers. He said whatever incentives the president had announced at the first instance were meant for the big land lords and then they had no immediate impact on the rural economy.

He said most of the measures announced in the package would start bearing fruit, if any, by October and November at the time of wheat sowing. He said the 9 per cent mark-up would be introduced by July 1 and by that time the growers of the Kharif crops would have taken loans at the high mark-up rates.

Similarly, DAP was a fertilizer mainly used for wheat while the president did not announce any reduction in urea price which was used to enhance fertility of the land under cotton cultivation.

He said the Pakistani growers were mainly using tractors having 50 to 85 horse power but the scriptwriters of the so-called 'Kissan package' had saved this category of tractors from any price reduction only to benefit their local manufactures.

He said a local tractor manufacturing firm had posted a net profit of Rs1.1 billion this year while the other Rs 600m. Mango Growers Association President Zahid Gardezi said that the package had nothing that could revolutionize the agriculture sector.