LAHORE: Key stakeholders from the agri-business community have criticized the Punjab government’s draft of new agriculture policy 2018.
They agri-business community believes the new policy formulated under the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) government in Punjab doesn’t provide equal footing for domestic consumers, reports Express Tribune.
According to their opinion, this would be more advantageous to the multinational entities working for the province.
The policy envisages the setting up of a new institution namely the Punjab Seed Registration and Regulation Authority (PSRRA) in deliberation with federal and other provincial governments for methods consistency.
The PSRRA will cover all aspects and will have the capacity to allow companies to pursue “enlistment” and be subject to a truth in labelling system.
Under this truth in labelling system, the onus of maintaining seed quality will be transferred to private companies for developing and testing varieties and self-report their characteristics on a label.
Consequently, PSRA will check the claims on the label and fines could be levied in case of fabrication.
The recommendation of such a parallel regulation system in Punjab for the same sector similar to what the federal government is already doing could create unnecessary problems for the seed industry.
The stakeholders expressed regret, such a step would be counter-productive and such recommendations had already been rebuffed by stakeholders in previous meetings.
They said these recommended reforms in the seed sector were against the interest of farmers and local seed producers.
