The PTI government has decided to give a package of agriculture uplift worth Rs.309 billion which is 42 billions less in financial terms than the one which had been provided by the last PML-N government and approximately 100 billion less in real terms after taking into account more than 35 percent currency depreciation. This programme of agriculture development, titled “Agriculture Emergency Programme” will be extended over a period of four years. It will include 13 projects in the areas of farming, fisheries and livestock. The proposed agriculture uplift package shall be submitted for approval to the meeting of Executive Committee of National Economic Council (ECNEC) this month.
After the absolute devolution of the subject of agriculture to provinces, under 18th Amendment the development outlay from the federal government on this backbone sector of the national economy has gone down from Rs.29 billion to Rs. 14 billion over the past 9 years, not withstanding fast losing of value by rupee against the US dollar and other major global currencies. Like the previous agriculture uplift package of Rs.341 billion the new package of Rs. 309 billion shall be largely financed by the provincial governments and unlike the Provinces of Punjab and Sindh, the financial resources deficient federating units of Khyber Pukhtunkhwa and Baluchistan will be at the receiving end.
The earlier apparently attractive looking agriculture package did not produce positive results because it was tilted abnormally towards the farmers of big land holdings at the cost of small farmers and the ones who possess subsistence landholdings. Moreover, it benefited mainly the sugarcane growers and up to some extent cotton growers of large land holdings. The rice growers were completely ignored and the farmers who were attending the launching ceremony of the agriculture package at the Convention Center Islamabad by the former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif registered their protest by raising slogans against it. It is the small farmer that boosts agriculture production, if bumper cotton crop of 1989 is any guide. The absentee feudal lords are now running industrial and business enterprises and hence give little attention to the decline in the production of different crops of their vast landholdings.
The bitter truth is that numerous inefficiencies that impact the growth of agriculture sector have never been seriously addressed over the past 39 years. Water conservation project including big and small dams have received step-motherly treatment so much so that Kalabagh dam was made politically controversial and no big dam project upstream Tarbella was launched as alternative. Meager allocations were made for the projects of small and medium water storages by the provincial governments.
The prices of agriculture inputs including fertilizers, insecticides, pesticides, better quality of hybrid seeds have abnormally gone up and are no longer affordable for the farmers of small and subsistence holdings. Loin share of the agriculture credit facility is doled out to feudal class and small farmers are being deprived of it. The net return ratio (NRR) between input and output accrued to small farmers is either 1 or less than 1 whereas this ratio must be 2 to 4. They even do not get a fair price in the market of the crops they grow every year. Small farmers must be given liberal amount of subsidy on the purchase of agriculture inputs. But ironically, sugar mills’ owners are getting export subsidy of Rs.8 per kilogram from the taxpayers’ money. Hence, the slogan of the ruling elite that agriculture is the mainstay of the economy is nothing but a political gimmick when viewed in the light of less than 1 percent growth of agriculture sector in the last fiscal year.
Agriculture Research Centers are functional in the province of Punjab alone and these centers do a commendable job for evolving diseases’ resistant and better productivity seeds of crops. On the contrary the agriculture research centers in Khyber Pukhtunkhwa and other small provinces are plagued by redundancy due to lack of equipments, chemicals and power outages.
Politically motivated decisions are taken for the installation of solar tub wells in the arid areas of the country. These tube wells benefit more the Senators, MNAs and MPAs at the cost of community as a whole. The agriculture sector will achieve the desired growth rate only when small farmers get importance in the uplift packages.
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