LAHORE (The Thursday Times) — Punjab Chief Minister Maryam Nawaz on Wednesday announced the Apna Punjab Kisan Bank, a dedicated bank for the province’s farmers, along with interest-free loans of up to Rs100 million and plans to give farmers land and expand livestock farming.
Addressing a delegation of farmers in Lahore, Maryam said the measures were part of a wider push to improve farmers’ access to finance, modernise agriculture and make farming more profitable. Details of the land programme and the eligibility rules for the loans would be announced soon, she said. “Your convenience, your facilities and your profit are very, very important to me,” she told the farmers.
Building on the Kisan Card
The chief minister said about one million small farmers now hold Kisan Cards, which let them buy seed, fertiliser and pesticide directly and cut out middlemen, and that farmers were being given up to Rs1 million before sowing under a related programme. Around 25,000 tractors have been handed out under the government’s mechanisation scheme, which she said would be expanded over the next two years and had revived tractor factories that were close to shutting down.
Maryam said the government had stamped out black-market sales of urea and DAP fertiliser and was making sure farmers got fair prices for their crops. She credited Agriculture and Livestock Minister Ashiq Hussain Kirmani, himself a farmer, for understanding the community’s problems.
Punjab’s food basket
Punjab grows most of Pakistan’s wheat, rice and cotton, and farmers have long complained of high input costs, expensive credit and dependence on middlemen and informal lenders. A provincial farmers’ bank was first approved in principle as part of the government’s Kisan Package.
