A BREAK through in alleviating poverty can be achieved through development of horticulture. The demand for fruits, nuts, vegetables, ornamentals, medicinal plants, herbs and spices is growing fast the world over, more so in developing countries.

The developed market is open but the product required should be of excellent quality to acquire right price. Horticultural crops contribute to income, livelihoods and diversification. Small holding and family enterprise fully suit to horticulture but the developing world lacks initiatives.

In 2000, the US spent $15 billion on flowers and plants, four times the amount spent in 1980. This portrays its scope. Same is in Europe, Australia, New Zealand and South Africa.

Flowering plants are bred in the US, sent to Japan for tissue culture at test-tube level. Then these are sent to Taiwan to bring them to plantlet level and from there to the Netherlands for raising to maturity in green houses. These four states specialize in the four stages of flower development.

Flower business of Holland accounted for 60 per cent of the world’s total cut flowers with transaction of $3 billions in 2000. They make about 40,000 transactions per day with planes taking off daily from Amsterdam to different destinations. The green house space in the Netherlands is around 25,000 acres which controls water, daylight hours and its intensity, temperatures by heating or cooling, and humidity. Flowers then are shipped to the other end of the world, Sydney (Australia) — a journey of 18 hours or to Japan.

Of all agriculture crops, horticulture can pay 5-10 times the field crops per unit area or unit of water. It can be replicated as efficiently on large scale as on small scale. Horticulture is eco-friendly if practised scientifically.

In Pakistan, we need to eliminate poverty, drudgery and unsound economy of agriculture production, increase income per acre and employment, produce healthy food, and capture sophisticated markets. We have successfully introduced 17 varieties of mango with the harvest date from April 15 to October 1, six new varieties of lychee, three of longan (pulp like lychee but more sweet), four of grapefruit, six of grapes, 12 of peaches, two of zizyphus jujube (Chinese ber) and six of pomegranate near Tando Jam in Sindh’s hot climate. All these are export-oriented but the scale is small. More farmers need to adopt it for export expansion.

We can have monopoly in export of fresh grapes, peaches and plum as these could be produced in Sindh in the months when the same are not supplied the world-over. We can have monopoly in lychee during May, longan in end July, grapefruit at the end of August, and grapes in April and May. No other country is producing them. The only country having identical climate is Mexico, but they are not in competition with us as they cannot saturate the US market.

European markets for Pakistan’s horticultural crops: Europeans do not accept yellow skin mangoes. They want big ones weighing 350-600 grams with red or purple skin and the pulp ratio equal to total weight, not very sweet but juicy; without turpentine smell, with small seed (6-8 per cent of the whole fruit], sugar content at 14-15 per cent — like Sindhri and unlike Chaunsa; skin should be free of blemishes and long post-harvest life. We have to aim towards this export and produce such varieties.

Besides mango, there is also scope for export of table grapes, wine grapes, plums, peach, strawberry, pear, fig, pomegranate, apricot, pistachio, almond, pecan nut, raisins, cherry, avocado, orange, grapefruit, lime, lemon, guava, papaya, tamarind, zizyphus mauritiana and jujuba, tangerine, lychee, longan, cherimoya, atemoya, sapote and sapodilla (chikku) and melon etc.

Among vegetables, there is a scope for tomato, cucumber, water melon, melon, squash, pepper, broccoli, lettuce, asparagus and egg fruit (brinjal). Among flowers, chrysanthenum leads roses gladiolus, carnation and lily. Of medicinal plants and ornamentals, basil leads sabila, pepper, chamormilla etc.

These are the guidelines for those interested in eliminating poverty in Pakistan.

Breeding for new horticultural crops: Genetic improvements in rice and wheat have sustained large population in India and Pakistan since 1965. There is tremendous scope in producing new varieties of fruits, nuts and some industrial crops by breeding, but this is practised only in developing countries and underdeveloped countries are far behind even in getting the latest information leaving aside importing them.

Looking to tremendous demand for horticultural products in the developed countries, only the countries strong in horticulture can respond and seek markets. Horticultural corps can bring a new Green Revolution in developing countries if there is a will.

Intellectual Property Rights and WTO: There is an issue of the Intellectual Property Rights (IPRs). In one workshop, an FAO specialist tried to get opinion from the innocent and ignorant participants in Karachi that the IPRs may be allowed wherein the participants did not know what it meant. It was explained that peach originated in Iran reached Europe more than 2,000 years ago and Spanish and Portuguese planted it first in south and then in north America. Other Europeans took it to the US and Canada. They cross-bred it in the past and continue to do this. The original germplasmas belonged to Iran. Now who should have the IPRs, the US scientists or Iran?

In the same way more than 100 wild acquisitions of grapes from the northern hills of Pakistan were taken to the US by Dr Olmo and Dr Ms Thompson, some 10-12 years ago. Now who should have the IPRs on grapes, the University of California or Pakistan? The issue was dropped in the above workshop, but one knows that some may get approval from the groups in Peshawar, Islamabad, Lahore and Quetta and the government may innocently agree to it.

It is a firm belief that no one should have the IPRs on any biological materials, as these belong to all humanity. The very science that has done so much to provide food to the developing countries is also increasing the divide between the rich and the poor and in the name of the Intellectual Property Right. Four leading US companies are increasing this disparity. The Trade Related Aspects (TRA) of the IPRs have not been properly addressed by the WTO.

Can organic agriculture replace present cultural practices? The organic agriculture has its own limits. It can be practised in Pakistan but after the use of fertilizers and chemicals in the past 40 years, we cannot easily get away from the existing system. It does not involve the use of bio-technology, farm chemicals and high energy inputs. It is labour-intensive but economical if given proper guidance and training. It is readily adaptable to field corps, but is difficult to adapt to horticultural crops, which need timely operation of high inputs. For example nitrogen comes from farm wastes and legumes grown and ploughed in, potassium from granite industry dust, phosphates by reducing pH of soil, as well as bone and fish meal and farm yard manure.

Diseases are controlled by extracts of many plants and these are not readily obtainable, micro nutrients in form of natural metallic sulphates, chlorides which are permitted for spraying and not by ground application and yet all are slow to work and for many diseases there are no natural chemicals available. Farmers in the developed countries get 10-25 per cent premium on organic fruits and vegetables, but they are not as attractive to look as those produced with chemicals. In general these have limited market and sophisticated buyers.

In developing countries they would be total failure unless owners are highly educated in that field, have well educated farm managers and trained labour, but yet the system has to leave room for occasional spraying of chemicals and the use of urea by spraying a number of times to make it acceptable as an organic product. Of course field crops are different, but nobody is ready to pay higher prices for wheat, rice, corn, cotton and sugarcane grown organically.

Precision farming versus organic farming: The only choice left for us is sustainable and precision farming, in which we apply the best science and management to small holdings on our farms. We have practised organic agriculture, but we cannot produce a good citrus crop without the use of pesticides. We cannot control hoppers in mango without the use of chemicals. We do have mango varieties immune to hoppers, powdery mildew and anthracnose, but then stem end rot and bacterial black spot take their toll. Aphids and scales cause sooty mould or blackening of leaves and fruit unless chemical or natural oils is sprayed, but there is limit to number of sprays of oils a year. Caustic soda controls powdery mildew, but not as effectively as pesticides.

Agriculture is primary interface between human being and environments. It utilizes more land, water and solar energy than any other human activity. It utilizes more than 40 per cent of total land of earth and more than 60 per cent water. More than 40 per cent of solar energy is utilized by this sector.

We have already over-taxed nitrogen in the soil and therefore use more than 60 per cent of nitrogen needed by crops from synthetic or manufactured fertilizers. In Pakistan available land per person is about 0.5 acres against 17.5 in the US. We cannot create more land and use more water without degrading land elsewhere.

By withdrawing water for one area, we are losing more elsewhere in the form of environmental degradation, erosion, sea encroachment, rise of salts from saline groundwater previously kept in check by cultivation, destruction of pasture land and biodiversity. In Pakistan more than 75 per cent water is utilized for agriculture and that again is used ineffectively or inefficiently.