| December 18, 2002 | Wednesday | Shawwal 13, 1423 |
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Saving the Indus Delta
Cheaper farm loans
ONE of the stumbling blocks in the way of reaching a global agreement on the manufacturing and marketing of life-saving drugs is the perennial North-South divide. Delegates representing 145 World Trade Organization (WTO) member states have gathered at Geneva once again to grapple with the issue while the deadline of December 31, 2002, as agreed at last year’s Doha conference, draws nearer. The developing countries interpret the preliminary agreements reached on the provisions of the Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) to mean that they are free to give manufacturing licences to domestic pharmaceutical companies to produce affordable life-saving drugs without having to give royalties to the transnational firms that have patented these drugs. The latter maintain that all such licensing amounts to violation of intellectual property rights. Even the provisionally agreed Doha Declaration of November 2001 only grudgingly allows developing countries the licensing option for domestic markets, but leaves little room for those poor countries that do not have adequate manufacturing capacities to produce generic formulations of patented drugs. Aid organizations, such as Oxfam and Medecins Sans Frontieres, have accused the pharmaceutical transnationals of blocking the access of poor countries to life-saving drugs under the cover of TRIPS.
The basic question, raised by the aid and rights organizations, is: which comes first — public health (of the poor) or the so-called intellectual property rights of the affluent multinationals? Those pursuing the interests of the transnationals include the US, the European Union, Canada, Japan and Switzerland — all hosts to giant transnational drug manufacturers, and pursuers of over-protectionist policies in support of certain heavily subsidized sectors of their respective economies — like farming in the US and agriculture and steel-making in the European Union. Meanwhile, the provisionally agreed TRIPS draft remains a controversial political document at best, having no legal value. This is ostensibly because the developed countries did not fully achieve at Doha what they originally aimed at doing: a complete ban on manufacturing and marketing of generic drugs within a developing country or among such countries. Under the existing agreement, sale of generic drugs meant for the treatment and management of fatal diseases such as HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis, malaria and a few other endemic afflictions were exempted as part of the political bargain, provided such sales were restricted within a given country.
The truth of the matter is that medicines are no more than genetically modified substances that are being marketed globally under patented brand names by a number of transnational pharmaceutical companies engaged in trade worth billions of dollars on the international bourses. A generic medicine manufacturer operating in a developing country cannot compete with these giant entities, much less be able to face litigation against itself if drugs-related provisions of TRIPS were to become part of international law. With disease and malnutrition threatening the lives of nearly one-third of the poorest of the world’s poor population, TRIPS is hardly a morally or legally justifiable covenant to be ratified. For once, it seems, the developing nations stand united as one against sheer greed and profiteering on the part of the transnationals, and that is the sole factor behind the hurry to clinch a deal before the so-called deadline of December 31 expires. Let the world wake up to 2003 with the realization that unless the poor are allowed to get a better, more just deal, the rich should not be permitted to get any richer.
THE warnings issued recently by conservation experts regarding the environmental degradation of the Indus Delta must be taken seriously. The general consensus is that unless steps are taken to increase the flow of the Indus, the vibrant and lively ecosystem of the sixth largest delta in the world will be irreversibly damaged. The reason for the lack of flow is not lack of rain but rather mismanagement of water, especially the way in which the reservoirs built upstream on the Indus are controlled. A couple of issues first need to be clarified. The first has to do with the popular misconception that the river water which flows into the sea is wasted. It is not; for the simple reason that in its place saline water from the sea would flow in and adversely affect the mangroves, fisheries, birds and other wildlife of the basin.
In fact, in the past few years this mismanagement has caused sea water to move far into the coastal areas and flood around 250,000 hectares of land in the delta, causing havoc to the livelihoods of local fishermen and farmers. Therefore, policymakers who say that releasing the water stored in the dams is bad because the water will just drain into the sea are presenting a misleading view. In any case, other than irrigation, the primary use of dams should be to control floods rather than to withhold water to areas of the country that badly need it. The second issue is a factual one. The Indus Water Accord guaranteed an additional 10 million acre-feet of water for the Indus Delta, but this increased allocation has never materialized. It has been denied under the usual pretext that there is not enough water.
Unfortunately, many Pakistanis — especially those living in the urban centres — are not fully aware of the environmental riches of the Indus Delta and hence of the importance of preserving its vital yet fragile ecosystem. Since the region is all inside Pakistan, formulating a conservation policy, one that takes into account the views of those most affected, and implementing it should not be too much of a problem, provided the will to do so is there.
THE decision to grant concessional loans to Punjab farmers is a welcome move. The Punjab chief minister, making the announcement in Lahore on Sunday, said that credit worth two billion rupees would be distributed among farmers by the Bank of Punjab during the next year. Scarce resources and high input costs have created untold difficulties, specially for small farmers, and badly affected agricultural development. Under the chief minister’s plan, Rs 800 million will be provided as loans for the purchase of fertilizer, seed and pesticide at an interest rate of nine per cent. The remaining Rs 1.2 billion will be offered to growers for buying tractors and farm equipment at 11 per cent, instead of the current 13 per cent mark-up rate. This will mean a reasonable reduction in the credit cost which should improve the recovery percentage. High interest rates have been a hurdle in the way of expansion of agricultural credit. The Bank of Punjab would not have agreed to the concessional loan scheme if it had affected its profit margin. This suggests that there is scope for further broad-basing the facility.
But where credit goes is equally important. Big farmers forming a small percentage of borrowers have pocketed a large chunk of bank loans. Some landlords in Sindh are even said to have passbooks of Haris in their possession against which they obtain credit in collusion with unscrupulous bankers. If credit is made available to genuine persons and at the same time the rate of recovery is sufficiently improved, it will help place more resources at the disposal of the banks and increase coverage as well as lead to a reduction in interest rates. While it is necessary to improve small farmers’ access to the new facility, steps should be taken to streamline the availability of inputs, especially canal water, and curb the extortionate practices of local officials which are a drain on the growers’ limited earnings.