The latest statistics for the agriculture disbursement released by the State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) shows that the commercial and specialized banks have disbursed some Rs248 billion during July 2009-June10, depicting the disbursement has fallen short by Rs12 billion.

Experts had earlier calculated that the central bank’s agriculture credit disbursement target will fall short by Rs10 billion to Rs 12 billion.

Farmers’ representative bodies are of the view that the farmers are deprived of water, good support prices and are facing difficulties due to consistent rise in utilities’ tariffs and input costs and that is why the real agriculturists did not show interest in borrowing from banks.