Government co-operative programme project proposal

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  “the need for productivity” (particularly agriculture) though innovation, creation and commercialisation of knowledge, broader investment and encouraging private sector involvement;
  
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  market, land and taxation reforms (including legal issues and their regulatory environment);
  
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  promoting trade openness and competition, improving transport efficiency, storage facilities and packaging, and deregulating agriculture and rural markets;
  
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  “creative cities”; and
  
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  “youth engagement”.
  

1. 
   Reduction in the number of people suffering from hunger, progressively ensuring a world in which all people at all times have sufficient, safe and nutritious food that meets their dietary needs and food preferences for an active and healthy life.
   
2. 
   Elimination of poverty and the driving forward of economic and social progress for all, with increased food production, enhanced rural development and sustainable livelihoods.
   
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   Sustainable management and utilisation of natural resources, including land, water, air, climate and genetic resources, for the benefit of present and future generations.
   

In order to achieve the Vision of FAO and the Global Goals of its Members, the Organization has defined eleven Strategic Objectives. They focus on where FAO can best assist Members to achieve sustainable impacts in addressing the challenges and opportunities facing food, agriculture and rural development. The Strategic Objectives represent a combination of interlinked and cross-sectoral impacts, addressing the areas of crops, livestock, fisheries, food safety, forestry, natural resources, enabling environments, food security, gender, emergencies and investment. Added to these, FAO has also identified six guiding principles to underpin the Organization’s development work, viz: (i) work through participatory and process-oriented approaches; (ii) build on existing knowledge, methods and capacities; (iii) ensure complementarity of actions and links with other stakeholders and actors; (iv) focus on capacity development of rural communities and all other stakeholders of the food chain; (v) focus on gender equity; and (vi) promote “do no harm” and “rights-based” approaches.

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  Crop and livestock productivity levels are generally low and partial or complete crop failures are common under rainfed conditions.
  
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  Limited access to water supplies, inefficient use of the water that is available, and low levels of on-farm water management – compounded by the ever increasing effects of climate change and variability. Increasing droughts mean that water flow and flooding in seasonal rivers has been significantly reduced, groundwater supplies are diminishing because of over-exploitation by tube-wells and karezs (with little opportunity for recharge), and the increasing frequency of flash floods results in worsening riverbank erosion and damage to water harvesting structures.
  
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  Poorly managed, over-grazed and degraded rangelands resulting in low levels of livestock production, increasing soil erosion and reduced water storage. There is an overall livestock nutritional deficit in total digestible nutrients and protein and this is reflected in low conception, lambing and weaning percentages. The 2000 Balochistan Conservation Strategy reported that the number of sheep and goats in Balochistan Province was six to seven times the actual carrying capacity of the rangelands. The resulting poor nutrition has led to high mortality, high parasite loads and the stunted growth of young animals. Livestock owners sustain high losses, especially during droughts.
  
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  Weak research and extension systems with very limited outreach capacity mean that farmers have very little, if any, access to knowledge and information on new and improved technologies, practices and opportunities for increasing crop and livestock productivity.
  
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  A significant proportion of high-value horticultural and animal produce never reaches prime markets because of inadequate knowledge of post-harvest requirements and weak and underdeveloped value chains. As new methods to raise productivity for agricultural production are introduced, farmers will need to understand the demands of the market and how to obtain the best prices for their products. However, and despite the expansion of mobile telephone networks, farmers lack access to up-to-date information on demands for their produce and current market prices and still rely on “middlemen” (who are prone to charge excessive overheads for their services) for such information and for buying their produce (at relatively low prices) at the farm-gate.
  

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  Off-farm employment opportunities in rural areas are often limited and seasonal migration, particularly of male household members, is common.
  
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  Most poor rural households of western Balochistan are food deficit, and devote as much as 80 percent of household expenditure on food items, but at the same time, there is considerable scope to increase household incomes by raising agricultural production.
  
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  Continuing increases in food prices to unprecedented levels create both risks and opportunities for resource poor smallholder farmers.
  

Women’s participation in economic decision-making is often limited and their direct contribution to agriculture is less than in many other parts of Pakistan and the world as a whole. Women are far less likely to engage in field-based crop and livestock activities, owing in large part to their greater confinement to the home. There is therefore significant scope to increase women’s involvement in economic decision-making and income-generation at the household levels (e.g. homestead vegetable and poultry production and agro-processing), but this can only be achieved in ways that are sensitive and amenable to existing cultural norms and traditions.

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  Poor men and women smallholder farmers from existing co-operatives and community-based organisations (CBOs), newly created informal men and women community organisations (COs) and their district, tehsil and/or union council-based CO alumni associations and farmer field school (FFS) networks, and farmers marketing collectives (FMCs) and their more formal mutual marketing organisations (MMOs) – all brought together to establish smallholder producer and marketing groups and improve the competiveness of targeted value chains.
  
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  Private sector organisations such as chambers of commerce, market boards and private companies that are crucial to value chain development in the project area, i.e. input suppliers, buyers, collectors and traders, manufacturers of farm tools and agricultural implements and equipment, and wholesalers, processors, transporters and retailers.
  
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  Government line departments, institutes and agencies specialising in agricultural research and development and produce marketing, e.g. the Balochistan Provincial Agriculture and Co-operatives, Livestock and Dairy Development, and Forestry and Wildlife Departments; the Pakistan Agricultural Research Council (PARC) and its National Agricultural Research Centre (NARC), Islamabad and AZRC, Quetta; the Pakistan Space and Upper Atmosphere Research Commission (SUPARCO); and national and provincial universities and colleges/faculties of agriculture.
  
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  AusAID and FAO, as well as like-minded donors (especially the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD), USAID and the World Bank), and their international implementing partners and associated programmes and projects (e.g. ACIAR, the International Centre for Agricultural Research in the Dry Areas (ICARDA), International Maize and Wheat Improvement Centre (CIMMYT), International Water Management Institute (IWMI), Internet and Mobile Marketing Association (IMMAP) and United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) within both Balochistan Province and Pakistan and the South and West Asia regions as a whole. All of these organisations/centres have representations in Pakistan.