ISLAMABAD: President Asif Ali Zardari has said that government has
accorded high priority to agriculture to ensure food security and
creating new job and income opportunities for rural population.
In
his message on the occasion of World Food Day he said, the government
took various steps including increase in wheat procurement price last
year and new incentives to grow more food.
He said the theme of
this year’s World Food Day “Food prices - From Crisis to stability” is
most relevant to countries with agro - based economies like Pakistan
facing multiple challenges of stagnancy in agricultural productivity,
high population growth, water shortage, land degradation, climate change
and in our case the devastation of agriculture by recurring floods.
“We
need to adopt innovative approaches to achieve food security. The two
consecutive floods have played havoc with our agriculture produce, cash
crops and live stock,” the President said.
He said with the
assistance of the international community, the government managed to
provide critical support to the millions of flood affected people by
providing needed rations to save them from imminent threat of hunger.
Much has been done for their rehabilitation, but still a lot more needs
to be done in the fight against hunger to ensure food security for our
people in Sindh, the President added.
The President said
spiralling food prices world wide is a serious challenge to food
security, adding, prices of commodities affect all countries of the
world and there is a need for the international community to devise ways
for ensuring that food prices remain within the reach of the common
people.
President Zardari on the eve of the World Day- 2011,
reiterated his commitment to ensure food prices stability and food
security for the people and to initiate interventions to overcome the
existing challenges in the way of achieving this goal. Online
