Agricultural Sector of Pakistan: Challenges and Response

Transcription

1 Book Review Agricultural Sector of Pakistan: Challenges and Response Although Pakistan is no more a predominantly agricultural country, thanks to rapid strides it has made in her quest for industrial transformation, agriculture still occupies a prominent place in Pakistan s overall economic structure. Being a pivot around which all other economic activities move, it is a major contributor to the country s economy in terms of GDP, foreign exchange earnings, employment generation, raw material for manufacturing industry (primarily textile) and the most vital, national food security. In fact Pakistan s survival and growth are directly dependent on its agriculture due to its socio-political interconnectedness and its economic and financial linkages-backward and forward, horizontal and vertical. Its performance still dictates all our macro indicators growth rates of the economy, poverty profile, foreign exchange reserves, inflationary pressures etc. That s why the quartered shield in the center of Pakistan s national emblem still shows cotton, wheat, tea and jute, which were the major crops of Pakistan at independence and signify the agricultural base of the economy. Coupled with suitable climate and availability of fairly good land and water resources, agriculture has been the major activity for centuries in this part of the world. Her vast natural resource base and diverse ecological zones help Pakistani farmers to produce a large variety of agricultural crops in different seasons all over the country. If compared historically, Pakistan s agriculture sector has not done badly as generally alleged despite the fact that it did not get

2 the attention it deserved. Almost all crops have improved their yield 3 to 4 times during the last 60 years: Coupled with increase in area under cultivation of different crops, the total production of major crops has shown impressive results. Production of wheat has increased from 4 MMT in 1950 to 25MMT in 2015 while that of rice has increased from less than 1MT to 2 Mt in 1960s to more than 7 MMT in the same period. Similarly, the production of maize has improved from 0.5MT in 1950s to 1MT in 1960s to 4MMT in 2015.Cotton has shown even more impressive results-from 0.8 MT in 1950s to 2 MT in 1960s to 12.9 MT 2010 while sugarcane - from 6MT in 1950s to more than 55MMT during the 65 years of her existence. Global Comparison It has become quite fashionable to compare every sector and institution of Pakistan with its respective global counterpart, particularly an Indian one, and start lamenting that Pakistan is far behind in everything-productivity, efficiency, resource utilisation, service delivery, profitability, customer satisfaction etc.it really pains me to listen to or read the writing of eminent scholars who start their thesis with the lamentation that Pakistani farmer is very inefficient as compared to Indian one. They do not bother to consult the official statistics of even Indian bureau of agricultural statistics, leave alone the Pakistani or FAO figures. Nothing can be farther from the truth. While it may be true in some cases, you cannot compare the performance of two sectors or institutions working under different socio economic environments and governance structures without understanding the context. Let me clarify my point a bit in detail.

3 In case of global comparison of performance of Pakistani farmer with his closest rival, he compares favorably with his Indian counterpart, in terms of yield, despite the fact that Indian agriculture is heavily subsidized while agriculture in Pakistan always got step motherly treatment with few exceptions here and there. It is because of the efforts of these farmers that Pakistan ranks second in the production of indigenous buffalo meat, buffalo milk, oilseed; third for chilies and cottonseed; fourth for mango, pulses, goat milk, cotton lint, goat meat, roots and tubers; fifth for production of Chick peas and spices; sixth for wheat, sugarcane, apricots, spinach, okra, dates; seventh for cauliflowers and broccoli; eighth for tangerines, mandarins, fresh tropical fruits, tobacco, onions; eleventh in pistachios, oranges, and wools; thirteenth for rice and fourteenth in bird eggs and peas; and fifteenth in lentils. Notwithstanding the above mentioned achievements of Pakistan s agriculture sector, it is a fact that the agriculture sector is working far below its genuine potential. In spite of favourable conditions of soil, irrigation water and climate, it suffers from under-utilizing of its potential resources, resulting in low yields per hectare and per unit of inputs used. According to conservative estimates, there is a potential yield gap ranging from 50% t0 75% in various crops, fruits, vegetables and animal products. Why is it so? Book under review tries to answer this question by discussing the issues relating to Pakistan s agriculture sector from different perspectives, highlighting the challenges it is facing and how to respond to them. The book is divided in six parts, each dealing with a specific topic of Pakistan s agricultural sector. In part one, besides providing the brief profile of all the five major subsectors of Pakistan s agriculture namely crops, horticulture, livestock, fisheries and forestry, a brief history of evolution of agriculture in Pakistan is given. It provides the context for assessing where Pakistan s agriculture stands,

4 historically and globally. A case is made that despite all the misconception, Pakistan s agriculture stands fairly comfortably notwithstanding the step motherly treatment it has got from successive regimes in the past. This section also carries out the SWOT Analysis of the sector and highlights the challenges it is facing. Reader may notice the omission of few other subsectors of agriculture particularly floriculture and sericulture from this discussion. Frankly these sectors get so little attention and finances in Pakistan that it is wastage of time to discuss them. In part 2, the first of the policy interventions, namely increasing production through area expansion, is discussed. Although Pakistan s success in increasing her agricultural production owe a lot to this source of growth in the past, but now we have reached a point where the area under cultivation cannot be increased; rather the urban sprawl and infrastructural development are fast encroaching upon arable lands. At the same time water logging, salinity and nonscientific use of water resources are making huge area every year unfit for cultivation. Part 3 focuses on the second policy intervention to increase production, namely vertical expansion- increasing the productivity of the sector. This is an area where a lot needs to be done through resource conservation and adopting best agricultural practices Part 4 is about the structural transformation of the agricultural sector of Pakistan. This is an idea whose time has come because it is only through value addition, changing the production relations and improving the marketing of agricultural produce, we can improve the overall profitability of the sector. In Part 5 the cross cutting issues affecting the agricultural sector are discussed in detail. Ranging from improving the terms of trade and gender mainstreaming to taking adaptive and mitigating measure for tackling the impending threat of

5 environmental degradation and climate change, this is an area where least attention is being paid by the policy makers in Pakistan. Needless to emphasize, any productivity gains or efficiency gains will soon be eroded if we do not ensure the environmental sustainability or ensure equitable distribution of gains from the enhanced production of agricultural sector. Last part discusses the issues which are not normally discussed or put on backburner-land reforms, agricultural taxation and new, overarching concept of food security. It ends with a draft Charter of Farmers Rights.

6