June 9, 2003	Monday	Rabi-us-Sani 8, 1424

The high-priority given to agricultural development under the second generation economic reforms to reduce the pervasive rural poverty and accelerate economic growth has brought the negative role of feudalism in Pakistan to the fore again.

As far as the rulers and most of the opposition leaders, who are feudal lords, are concerned land reforms are a closed chapter. Prime Minister Zafarullah Khan Jamali has declared there would be no land reforms any more after the partial land reforms of Ayub Khan and Zulfikar Ali Bhutto years.

But Dr Hafez Pasha, one of the top economic experts of the country, and currently assistant secretary general of the United Nations, says Pakistan cannot achieve poverty alleviation unless it undertakes progressive land reforms.

He is not too impressed by the economic growth underway as he wants economic growth with real equity in a poor country like Pakistan. And he holds feudalism as a major deterrent to that liberal process.

Feudalism has more than an economic dimension. It has a political and social-dimension as well. And it tends to concentrate wealth and power in the hands of a few. Hence today if the rulers are feudal lords, the opposition groups are also headed by the feudal lords. And the stifling feudal psychology prevails in other leaders as well who came up claiming to be the party of the poor or representatives of the middle class. The feudal psyche is dominant everywhere, not excluding the official class which got allotment of lands through the government.

Now far more is to be allocated for the development of agriculture. Twenty-three per cent of the Public Sector Development Programme has been allocated for agriculture and irrigation, a number of small and big dams are being built to feed the agriculture. The canal network is also being expanded all around to carry this water to the farmers.

How do we ensure the benefit of this allocation of Rs 38 billion followed by larger allocations in the years to follow, reach the farmers?

Yusuf Talpur as the food minister used to say that all problems of agriculture would be solved the day tail-enders get enough water. Instead the influential landlords who are where the canals begin get the water they want and more and cause excessive water logging in the area by misusing the surplus water.

So we have on one side shortage of water and on the other waste of almost 70 per cent of the water which is misused.

As long as the farmland has very powerful landlords such misuse of water cannot be checked; the local irrigation officials too obey them and let the water be misused.

One of the major means of promoting agriculture is by giving large loans to the farmers at concessional or low rates of interest. How do we make sure the small farmers get the loans? And how do we ensure the landlords who get the larger loans actually use them on land and not on larger wedding ceremonies, more pajeroes and more frequent trips to foreign countries?

How we make sure the money obtained as loans for fertilizers and pesticides is actually used for such productive purposes? Of course the number of progressive farmers has increased and they are getting better yield from their farms than before. And yet how to ensure most of the loans are used for such productive purposes?

Despite the recurrent drought in the country sugar production has reached the peak of 3.66 million tonnes. And yet the problem of getting far larger yield of cane per acre and better sucrose yield per tonne of came is real. We are far behind the Indian Punjab farms in this regard for want of better attention to farming methods. Similarly the bi-products of the sugar cane can be put to far better use. And that is seldom taking place.

Recently the federal government decided to undertake three studies in the agricultural sector to draft a comprehensive and integrated agricultural policy to increase agriculture’s share in the GDP which is around 24 per cent now. The studies relate to market access, export competition, and domestic support. The government and the progressive farmers are concerned over the impact of WTO regime on agriculture that is to come soon. It appears that when the world feels free to export all it wants under the new WTO regime the gain of Pakistani exports may not be more than one per cent. Compared to that, India would benefit to the extent of 70 per cent of its agricultural exports. Pakistan is far too behind in this area in spite of the great opportunity for export that may become available but only if we have the right policy and production and export methods.

One of the weakness of the ministry of agriculture in this area is the frequent changes of secretaries. So the top men are not able to concentrate on such problems. In the last three years it has been said we had five secretaries for agriculture. In Sindh, for example the changes are much more frequent.

The Mahbubul Haq Human Development Centre, based in Islamabad recently came out with its report for 2002 which focused on agriculture and rural development in South Asia”, and identified many of our agricultural problems.

Earlier in March, 1988 the National Commission on Agriculture headed by Sartaj Aziz had come up with its very comprehensive report on the problems of agriculture in Pakistan.

Clearly there is no dearth of data and guide lines but action is missing, although most of the members of the national and provincial assemblies are feudal lords with a strong stake in agriculture. But they did not want to do far more, gain far more and enable their tillers to profit more.

But the WTO’s new export regime can hurt Pakistan deeply if it does not get ready to face the changes to come, and we invest far more on agriculture, improve the quality of our products and arrange for better marketing facilities.

The country’s future is far more important than the welfare of some feudal lords who may be more keen on their political power and its ranging benefits than in reforming their agriculture.

May be it is time we set up another agricultural commission to study the new problems and the graver challenges to come and devise solutions for them. Meanwhile the talk of resorting to corporate farming is making no headway. And it is likely that the recommendations of the new commission or committee may not receive any more attention than the reports of earlier committees and task forces. So despite having farm-lords ruling at the centre and in the provinces, and being opposed too by other feudal lords, our agricultural system remains in just the post-primitive stage save some notable exceptions.