China to import potato, cherry, wheat from Pakistan :Chinese Ambassador

[Yankee-stani]

ISLAMABAD: Chinese Ambassador to Pakistan Yao Jing here on Friday said that China was interested to enhance its import of potato, cherry, wheat besides increasing its investments in other sectors of economy to further cement the bilateral trade and investment relations between both the countries.

The Ambassador of China called on Federal Minister for National Food Security and Research Sahibzada Muhammad Mehboob Sultan and discussed the matters relating to promote bilateral trade and cooperation in different sectors of economy including agriculture and livestocks.

The Ambassador said that Chinese Government would also formally invite Pakistani experts to monitor the hybrid rice seed expertise of China and monitor the facility to enhance its local output of the crop and promoting its exports.

Speaking on the occasion, Federal Minister said that Pakistan and China were members of various organizations and being member of Shanghai Cooperation Organization, Pakistan had endorsed agreement on cooperation in agriculture between the governments of the member states of the organization.

China, he said produces food for 20 percent of the world’s population and it also imports huge quantity of food for its population.

China was a strong force in South Asian region and CPEC opened up new venues of cooperation between two friendly neighbors.

The minister said that China is the 4th largest export market of Pakistan, adding that it was heartening that both countries have signed free trade agreement (FTA) which has facilitated to expand bilateral trade.

He further said that the Prime Minister’s visit in the first week of November, 2018 was very important as both sides signed (MoU) also on agriculture cooperation has also been signed on the same occasion followed by Chinese delegation’s visit to the Ministry of National Food Security.

Federal Minister Mehboob Sultan said that government was moving ahead to collaborate in achieving foot and mouth disease free zone and a memorandum of requirements for the establishment of FMD free zone is currently negotiated by both sides.

He added that we believe in ease of doing business and if we collaborate for the elimination of FMD it will boost our meat export to China.

Mehboob Sultan extended his invitation to Chinese experts to visit the three districts of Punjab which are identified as FMD free zone.

He also expressed his desire that both countries in coming joint Working Group meeting, to deliberate upon working on establishing FMD vaccine plant in Pakistan with the Chinese assistance; and move towards self reliance in the subject.

Source-The News

 

[jupiter2007]

Chinese want Pakistan to recover from financial crisis but corrupt mafia doesn’t like that idea. If Pakistan recovered from this mess, it will be end of all these corrupt political parties. But recovery is not going to be easy, it might take more 5 to 10 years to fully recover and eliminate the trade deficit.
Agriculture research and development will take atleast 3 to 5 years. Government need to start a pilot Agriculture project to test new technologies.
Once this technology is tested, it can be implemented in 1 to 2 districts of Balochistan. If i was in the government, I would have requested PM to start a farmer scheme by allowing people to purchase cheap land in Balochistan as long as they use it for farming and livestock. There has to be Clause in the contract that they will use it for only farming and livestock and they can’t sell it to anyone else without government approval.

 

[FuturePAF]

Chinese want Pakistan to recover from financial crisis but corrupt mafia doesn’t like that idea. If Pakistan recovered from this mess, it will be end of all these corrupt political parties. But recovery is not going to be easy, it might take more 5 to 10 years to fully recover and eliminate the trade deficit.
Agriculture research and development will take atleast 3 to 5 years. Government need to start a pilot Agriculture project to test new technologies.
Once this technology is tested, it can be implemented in 1 to 2 districts of Balochistan. If i was in the government, I would have requested PM to start a farmer scheme by allowing people to purchase cheap land in Balochistan as long as they use it for farming and livestock. There has to be Clause in the contract that they will use it for only farming and livestock and they can’t sell it to anyone else without government approval.

Building the dams fully (as outlined in the Pakistan Flood Control System) will allow Pakistan to go from 45 Million acres of arable land to 70 million acres of arable land. The unemployed people can be made farmers on 55% more farm land. Couple that with schools to teach modern agricultural techniques, and the technology to maximize yields, we can have at least a doubling of agricultural output guaranteed (Inshallah). If we strive to be as modern with our farming techniques as done by other nations in our climate zone; we can go from 2.82 tons of wheat per hectare (2014 data; https://ourworldindata.org/yields-and-land-use-in-agriculture)
to China's average of 5.24 tons per hectare (86% more yield), and strive to aim for yield as in that of Belgium; 9.41 tons per hectare (234% more yield).

So 55% more arable land, and the possibility of 200%+ (Tripling) yield of wheat potential; that would mean 5 times more wheat can be produced by Pakistan if they really invest in Agriculture. We could feed all our people and have more than enough for export.

With help from Turkey we can try to replicate their yields. going from our current 0.75 tons of rice per hectare to their 4.37 tons per hectare (or 582% of our yield) coupling that with the 55% increase in arable land; and we could see 900% of our current rice yields.

These are just two crops we produce. Finding ways to use labor intensive means of developing this land while we have a large young population and limited funds will help develop these new farm lands and the existing farm lands. Over time (the next 30 years) the revenue generated from the farms will pay for modern equipment and the shift to mechanization as the number of young people as a portion of our population decline (the end of the demographic dividend) we can shift over to a middle income nation with modern farms and a much more extensive irrigation system and supply chain with many nations dependent on Pakistan agricultural output for their daily needs. Consumers in the Middle East, China, and even as far as Europe and Africa may be importing Pakistani finished products due to 30 years of investing in our industry starting today.

For example; Africa is going to go from 1 Billion to 4 Billion people over the next 50 years. We need to prepare for that export market. China's demand for quality and nutritious foods will keep increasing as their wealth increases. we can produce that and raise our prices with market forces; supply and demand, allow our producers to earn and circulate the money to prop up a large part of our economy using a large part of our labor force. Its a virtuous cycle.

 

[jupiter2007]

Building the dams fully (as outlined in the Pakistan Flood Control System) will allow Pakistan to go from 45 Million acres of arable land to 70 million acres of arable land. The unemployed people can be made farmers on 55% more farm land. Couple that with schools to teach modern agricultural techniques, and the technology to maximize yields, we can have at least a doubling of agricultural output guaranteed (Inshallah). If we strive to be as modern with our farming techniques as done by other nations in our climate zone; we can go from 2.82 tons of wheat per hectare (2014 data; https://ourworldindata.org/yields-and-land-use-in-agriculture)
to China's average of 5.24 tons per hectare (86% more yield), and strive to aim for yield as in that of Belgium; 9.41 tons per hectare (234% more yield).

So 55% more arable land, and the possibility of 200%+ (Tripling) yield of wheat potential; that would mean 5 times more wheat can be produced by Pakistan if they really invest in Agriculture. We could feed all our people and have more than enough for export.

With help from Turkey we can try to replicate their yields. going from our current 0.75 tons of rice per hectare to their 4.37 tons per hectare (or 582% of our yield) coupling that with the 55% increase in arable land; and we could see 900% of our current rice yields.

These are just two crops we produce. Finding ways to use labor intensive means of developing this land while we have a large young population and limited funds will help develop these new farm lands and the existing farm lands. Over time (the next 30 years) the revenue generated from the farms will pay for modern equipment and the shift to mechanization as the number of young people as a portion of our population decline (the end of the demographic dividend) we can shift over to a middle income nation with modern farms and a much more extensive irrigation system and supply chain with many nations dependent on Pakistan agricultural output for their daily needs. Consumers in the Middle East, China, and even as far as Europe and Africa may be importing Pakistani finished products due to 30 years of investing in our industry starting today.

For example; Africa is going to go from 1 Billion to 4 Billion people over the next 50 years. We need to prepare for that export market. China's demand for quality and nutritious foods will keep increasing as their wealth increases. we can produce that and raise our prices with market forces; supply and demand, allow our producers to earn and circulate the money to prop up a large part of our economy using a large part of our labor force. Its a virtuous cycle.

I am glad that you have done your research.

 

[ARMalik]

China needs to do more by importing more stuff from Pakistan. One way of doing this is to set-up a joint team of experts from both countries to formulate "Quality and Standards Guidelines" for Pakistan specially the farmers. The purpose of this as the name suggests is to agree upon what international quality standards apply to what products in Pakistan including storage and transportation of agricultural products. These would be the products which China would import from Pakistan. The standards agreed upon will be then taught to farmers and other manufacturers by trained people who would go to the field to teach these standards.

I believe if we can do this, the Pakistan's exports can easily become 10 folds to what they are now, about 200 Billion a year I would say. I strongly believe that some products produced in Pakistan are unrivaled on this entire planet. Example mangoes, basmati rice, etc. There is nothing more delicious than a mango produced in Pakistan. And there are so many other things.

 

[Yankee-stani]

Chairman Mao was very fond of Pakistani mangoes in fact I think there is a Pakistani Mango in some Chinese museum.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/wo...the-mango-during-the-Cultural-Revolution.html

 

[Paul2]

Building the dams fully (as outlined in the Pakistan Flood Control System) will allow Pakistan to go from 45 Million acres of arable land to 70 million acres of arable land. The unemployed people can be made farmers on 55% more farm land.

This may sound harsh, but I believe that having that many people employed in farming in Pakistan is by itself a problem.

When I talked with locals during my last visit to the country, even richer people sounded, how to say, "undecided" when it comes to industrialisation and putting their money into that.

Farming and land hoarding to them appeared to them as a much more secure and steady way to income security, than "an abstract Western thing called industrialisation." Ignoring the fact that in reality agriculture is very opposite of that image. A small farmer can loose everything in a single year to bad or destroyed harvest. Of course a landowner will simply invite new suckers to plough his land when that happens, and brush off the loss until he is stricken again, and again.

 

[FuturePAF]

This may sound harsh, but I believe that having that many people employed in farming in Pakistan is by itself a problem.

When I talked with locals during my last visit to the country, even richer people sounded, how to say, "undecided" when it comes to industrialisation and putting their money into that.

Farming and land hoarding to them appeared to them as a much more secure and steady way to income security, than "an abstract Western thing called industrialisation." Ignoring the fact that in reality agriculture is very opposite of that image. A small farmer can loose everything in a single year to bad or destroyed harvest. Of course a landowner will simply invite new suckers to plough his land when that happens, and brush off the loss until he is stricken again, and again.

Employing the masses of employed young people in agriculture as a transitional method. the next 30 years are our demographic dividend and we are short of cash. If we can limit births to 2 per married couple, we can sustain a stable population while industrializing. if yield increase by 500% overall with the same population we can say we have utilized our demographic dividend most economically with our own resources. Governments change and without the stability of a consensus on industrialization and the funding to pay for it long term, investing in modernizing agriculture is a safer bet.

 

[The Accountant]

I suggest that besides working on food production we should invest in food processing as well ... Food processing is value addition where the real benefit lies ... Unfortunately we do not work on food processing and quality assurance areas ...

 

[KediKesenFare3]

One negative side effect will be that prices on the local markets will go up which is bad for the average Pakistani. Same happened in Turkey after Russia resumed importing Turkish agricultural goods.

 

[The Accountant]

yes specially potato is very cheap in pakistan

 

[GeraltofRivia]

This may sound harsh, but I believe that having that many people employed in farming in Pakistan is by itself a problem.

When I talked with locals during my last visit to the country, even richer people sounded, how to say, "undecided" when it comes to industrialisation and putting their money into that.

Farming and land hoarding to them appeared to them as a much more secure and steady way to income security, than "an abstract Western thing called industrialisation." Ignoring the fact that in reality agriculture is very opposite of that image. A small farmer can loose everything in a single year to bad or destroyed harvest. Of course a landowner will simply invite new suckers to plough his land when that happens, and brush off the loss until he is stricken again, and again.

Your observation on local’s thought on industrialization is an interesting one, I have sort of observed a similar sentiment in the developedish western countries like Australia and New Zealand. Some of the sentiment was caused by a strong agriculture industry lobbying. We have seen slowly de-industrialization in these countries. The only difference is that the agriculture industry in these developed countries are nothing like their counterparts in the developing countries in that they are highly industrialized and well financed.

I guess with a healthy growth in the manufacturing industry in Pakistan, more people will be attracted as they generally paid better. We we will see food prices going up (demand from export and industry workers), which means farming income increases. This will cause:
1. farmers will be able to save excessive capital to upgrade their processes and production eg machinery, cool stores, etc.
2. additional capital will be attracted to farming industry as it offers better returns.

While it is important to allow the food price to go up, the authorities need to keep an eye on the food market so that the price does not rise too much too quick. Otherwise it will start to cause disruptions to the economy growth and social unrest.

 

[FuturePAF]

One negative side effect will be that prices on the local markets will go up which is bad for the average Pakistani. Same happened in Turkey after Russia resumed importing Turkish agricultural goods.

Hopefully average incomes will rise faster than food prices.

 

[MultaniGuy]

Excellent news. China is the world's most populous nation in the world. They have huge food needs.

Exporting agricultural goods from Pakistan to China is a good idea.

 

[FuturePAF]

Your observation on local’s thought on industrialization is an interesting one, I have sort of observed a similar sentiment in the developedish western countries like Australia and New Zealand. Some of the sentiment was caused by a strong agriculture industry lobbying. We have seen slowly de-industrialization in these countries. The only difference is that the agriculture industry in these developed countries are nothing like their counterparts in the developing countries in that they are highly industrialized and well financed.

I guess with a healthy growth in the manufacturing industry in Pakistan, more people will be attracted as they generally paid better. We we will see food prices going up (demand from export and industry workers), which means farming income increases. This will cause:
1. farmers will be able to save excessive capital to upgrade their processes and production eg machinery, cool stores, etc.
2. additional capital will be attracted to farming industry as it offers better returns.

While it is important to allow the food price to go up, the authorities need to keep an eye on the food market so that the price does not rise too much too quick. Otherwise it will start to cause disruptions to the economy growth and social unrest.

A base load production per hectare can be calculated, and production below that mount can be bought by the government for local consumption at a certain price to meet local needs, while production above that for export can be priced at a certain price for the farmer. this will keep average consumers safe, while incentivizing farmers to modernize and increase their yields.