ISLAMABAD: Pakistan Army Chief General Asim Munir and Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif have inaugurated the nation’s first corporate farm as part of the Green Pakistan Initiative (GPI) to modernize agricultural practices in the country.
GPI, which focuses on water conservation, sustainable farming and research and development, was launched earlier this month, as was a Land Information and Management System Center of Excellence ((LIMS-CoE) to enhance modern farming on over 9 million hectares of uncultivated state land, with Saudi Arabia providing an initial investment of $500 million. The center will work in collaboration with Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Bahrain and China on various agriculture projects to enhance Pakistan’s exports.
Agriculture contributes 23 percent to Pakistan’s GDP and employs 37.4 percent of the labor force but productivity is currently below par, with decreasing cultivation area, a population-production gap, and agricultural imports amounting to $10 billion.
The country is also facing a 4 million metric ton shortfall in wheat production against a total demand of 30.8 million metric tons, while cotton production has fallen by 40 percent to around 5 million bales in the last decade.
Against this backdrop, the government of Pakistan has joined hands with the army to launch the Green Pakistan Initiative to enhance food security, increase exports and reduce agriculture-related imports.
“Agricultural revolution will continue in Pakistan,” Army Chief Gen. Munir said on Monday at the launch ceremony of the 2,250-acre site of the country’s first corporate farm.
“We will create modern farms like this model farm which will benefit the small farmer and the scope of the Green Initiative will be spread all over Pakistan.”
The corporate farming project is being spearheaded by FonGrow, a subsidiary of the army’s Fauji Foundation. On its website, the company describes its work as:
“Leveraging on the hightech agri-facilities and modern practices, develop large scale corporate farms and value added agro-eco system in order to contribute to food security of Pakistan while also ensuring good agri-business for Fauji Foundation.”
“The establishment of FonGrow farm is truly the first step toward agricultural revolution. This is a one-of-a-kind agricultural system spread over 2,250 acres at Pirowal which is planned to be expanded under a robust development plan in the next five years. It consists of mostly barren piece of land,” Maj. Gen Tahir Aslam (Retd), Chief Executive Officer FonGrow, said in a media statement.
In June, Pakistan set up a Special Investment Facilitation Council (SIFC) — of which the army chief is also a member and in which the military has been assigned key roles — to attract foreign investment.