LAHORE - Pakistan Peoples’ Party (PPP) Punjab President Manzoor Wattoo has called upon the government to immediately accept the demands of the farmers which were presented by the representatives of Pakistan Kissan Ittehad (PKI).
He said that survival of the agriculture and economy of the country was at stake.
In a press statement issued on Saturday, Wattoo strongly criticised the federal and Punjab governments’ apathy for not seriously engaging the representatives of the PKI, who have been protesting in Lahore for the past three days.
He warned the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz-led federal and provincial governments’ indifference would invoke strong wide scale reaction of the farmers’ community that would engulf the whole country.
“The clock is ticking and now is the time for the government to lend an ear to the reservations of farmers’ community,” he said.
He pointed out that farmers had been suffering losses in their produces, wheat, rice, sugarcane, maze and potatoes, continuously during the last four years and the government was least interested in taking steps to rectify the situation.
Instead, it levied tax on agriculture produces reflecting its bias against the community by pursuing anti-farmers policies, he added.
He said that the high cost of fertilizers, pesticides, diesel and electricity were forcing the farmers to reduce the cultivated areas that in turn, he warned, would make Pakistan a food insecure country posing a bigger threat to the national security.