Govt to give loans for food processing

BAHAWALPUR: Special Assistant to Prime Minister on Food Security, Jamshed Iqbal Cheema on Friday said the federal government would give loans to youth for food processing to cater food need of the country.

Addressing a seminar entitled, "Agriculture Transformation Plan, a Vision of Prime Minister" at Islamia University Bahawalpur here he said they would not cater food need of the country without promoting food processing.

"Our food production has not been fulfilling total food need of the country," he said adding, therefore the federal government had decided to give loans to youth and other stakeholders to initiate food processing.

He said food intake of Pakistani nation was 38 percent lesser than developed countries. "Our new generation will get goals of progress when they are suffering from food scarcity," he said.

He said food processing was going to become bigger business than textile sector after the government was going to invest in it. "Our textile exports have been achieving target of exports by US dollar 15 billion," he said adding that they had been assigned a target of increasing exports to US dollar 26 billions in coming years. He added that the incumbent government had given Rs 115 billion as subsidy to textile sector.

He said 50 millions acres of lands out of total 220 millions acres of land in Pakistan was cultivated while Rajistan state of India alone cultivated crops over 50 millions of acres of land.

The government of Pakistan has decided to cultivate crops on more lands including utilizing millions of acres of land of Cholistan desert area.

He said the government had cultivated over four millions plants of olive while the country had already over 80 millions wild olive trees.