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III. MECHANISMS FOR INTEGRATING ENVIRONMENTAL CONSIDERATIONS INTO AGRICULTURAL POLICY
[ III | III-A | III-B | III-C | III-D | III-E | II-F ]
A. National agricultural policy
[ A | A-1 | A-2 | A-3 | A-4 | A-5 | A-6 | A-7 ]
NAP was promulgated in 1984 as a guideline for the country's agricultural development up to the year 2000. But a few years later it had become necessary to redefine the strategy for agricultural growth in the country. The second NAP, for the period 1992-2010, emphasizes the achievement of balanced development between the agricultural and manufacturing sectors.
The objectives of NAP 1984 were to maximize income through the efficient use of agriculture resources. It placed stress on the increase of farm productivity by choosing remunerative crops and employing the most efficient technologies. Generally, NAP 1984 was effective in guiding resource allocation, cropping patterns and output growth within the sector. However, it failed to look into the increasing income and productivity disparity between the agriculture sector and the rest of the economy, especially the manufacturing sector.
When the NAP came into being in 1984, the country was in recession. Even though agriculture was declining in importance, it remained was an important sector of the economy. With slow, and in some areas even negative, industrial growth the agriculture sector was viewed as having a brighter prospect. The main objective of NAP was to maximize income from agriculture through efficient utilization of domestic resources and the revitalization of the sector's contribution to the overall economic development of the country. It had been proposed that the NAP objective would be achieved through various actions that took into account the constraints and prospects of the sector.
New land was to be developed to enable the establishment of economic farm units, and efficient agricultural practices were to be fostered and land provided for growing new crops.
In situ development of land was also to be carried out in order to resolve the problems of uneconomic farm sizes, uneconomical crops and low levels of productivity. Finally, agricultural support services such as research, extension, marketing, fiscal incentives, and social and institutional development were to be provided. In no way could it be said that NAP failed. However, shortly after it was tabled, the country went into an unprecedented economic boom from which it was still benefiting until recently.
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