LAHORE: Farmers have demanded that the government impose an agricultural emergency in the country to ensure food security, as climate change, rising production costs, and falling farm produce prices are stunting sectoral growth.

Pakistan Kisan Ittehad President Khalid Khokhar said in a statement on Tuesday that climate change is severely affecting agriculture in the country, with yields of sesame (til), rice, and cotton drastically falling due to a heatwave, with temperatures reaching 48 degrees Celsius. This led to a drop in the yield of sesame by about 2-3 maunds per acre and rice by 5-50 maunds per acre.

He added that the prices of farm produce have also decreased—rice from Rs4,400 per maund last year to Rs2,200 this year and cotton from Rs8,500 last year to Rs6,000-7,000 per maund this year.

Contrarily, the prices of tractors have gone up, the fertiliser rate has risen to Rs4,600 per bag of urea, and the power tariff for farm tube-wells has increased to Rs55 to Rs70 per unit, he added.

Mr Khokhar said that farmers have already been hit hard due to the government’s non-procurement of wheat this year, leaving them unable to afford expensive fertiliser or pay high electricity tariffs.

He feared that if the government continues its current policies, the agricultural sector’s growth rate could fall from 6.2 percent last year to just 2 percent this year and may even go into the negative in the years to come.

He said the situation had forced farmers to die by suicide, such as Imran Yousuf of Haroonabad, who could not pay his electricity bill or cover his farm’s input costs.

Mr Khokhar said that it is high time to declare an agricultural emergency in the country and organise a grand dialogue among experts to mitigate the effects of climate change. Otherwise, the situation could ruin the sector and the country, leading to food security issues.

Published in Dawn, August 28th, 2024