The federal government’s exercises for the year 2005-06 have been completed with the release of the Economic Survey and budget for the next year. All documents and statements emphasize the importance of the agriculture sector for the national economy and note its improved performance.
The Economic Survey claims that “the government attaches high priority to raising agricultural productivity with a view to promoting faster agricultural growth and hence, raising farmer’s income”. The sector’s contribution to the national income and its employment generating role is also acknowledged.
However, neither statements of official managers and experts nor documents have been able to identify any significant measure the government has taken to boost productivity of the sector. The survey fails to identify major steps taken to promote productivity-because there haven’t been many, and the budget falls short of coming up with a strategy for enhancing agricultural productivity. Of lip service, there is of course no shortage.
Contribution of the sector has registered a significant rise because of an unprecedented high cotton crop of over 14.6 million bales. This shows a 45 per cent increase in the crop. The government is pleased but its response has been raising the target for the next crop and placing it at the same level, that is, 15 million bales.
There is no insight in to how is that to be achieved. It may not be irrelevant to mention here that the golden harvest owed itself to numerous factors outside the purview of the managers of the sector or even growers. The Survey identifies them including nature that was the crop’s most productive ally. The government can certainly harness improved quality of pesticide, higher cultivation area, certified seed, timely availability of fertilizer and other vital inputs but how are weather conditions to be organized to boost the crop?
Expectations for the next year are thus based on assumptions that ignore the contribution of some basic ground conditions. It is naïve of the government to think that another high crop of cotton can be raised with good intentions. Looking at future with such impaired vision can make documents impressive but cannot guarantee higher productivity.
Wheat produce for the just harvested crop has been placed at 21.1 million tones. This can be near the final output but the count is rather early and wears an inaccurate look because of the failure of the Punjab administration to meet its procurement target. This does not back the official assessment and reports of plans to import the commodity further negate the official view. The statisticians of the government appear to have jumped the gun though nothing is new in that.
There is a welcome admission of excessive preoccupation with major crops of cotton, wheat, rice and sugar cane but as often happens, this is not a starting point for reviewing strategy and adjusting sails to winds but has been done simply as a matter of fact. The issue is not the government’s policy so far but in which direction the sector proceeds from this state and what steps are proposed to balance policies.
More unfortunate is the attitude of hiding behind assumed or actual problems and turning to imagined or committed misdeeds and wrong policies of previous governments. The present regime has been in the saddle for five years. This was sufficient time for charting a course of its own and proving, with dynamic policies rather than with verbosity, that its inheritance placed a heavy burden on its shoulders.
The present line of defence can be challenged and effectively countered because the cotton crop owes itself to creative research in the past among other components of growth and the first wheat crop of the present set up was achieved by the leadership of the Agriculture Ministry installed by the administration replaced in October 1999. The present set up has now been in command long enough to have a scrap book of achievements of its own.
Gains in three of the four major crops, cotton, wheat and rice have been listed in the Survey. These are good tidings. But all three owe higher growth to extension of cultivation area. This would be welcome under normal conditions but a country suffering shortage of irrigation water can ill afford increase in cultivation acreage because the strategy has a built in device for damaging agriculture.
Exploring this possibility for enhancing productivity is a self-defeating device and amounts to undermining some crops for sustaining other crops that are not important for exports or feeding the populace. Using limited water resources for main crops inevitably casts a negative impact on minor crops even if there is no clash over sharing water between them.
Farmers become weary of drawing underground water for fear of further lowering its level and impairing its quality as also because the expenditure involved may not make up with profit from a minor crop. The availability of water is limited and main crops automatically receive priority irrigation from concerned agencies.
No one has concern for or interest in minor crops except farmers that grow them and farmers, particularly small land owners have little say in the management of their own affairs. This area has been neglected in the past for a number of reasons in which the policy of extending urban housing was the most detrimental to small crops.
Unfortunately, this policy is now being pursued with a vengeance by both private and public sectors with the result that some crops, particularly vegetables and other farm products of daily use have seriously suffered and their prices have shot up.
Both directly and indirectly, attention on major crops has been instrumental in undermining minor crops and restricting their growth. The policies of the government have not contributed meaningfully to enhancing growth of major crops while they have stifled minor crops. This uneven management needs to be corrected and balance must be created between main and small crops. Nothing in the policies of the government suggests concern for this state of negative affairs.
Duty exemptions and reductions contained in budget proposals for ginning machinery, tractors, urea and some other inputs are, with the exception of urea, are concessions for specific groups and would be financially beneficial for elite in the agriculture sector while any benefit reaching the average grower would be marginal and incidental. The need is specific measures designed to support farmers and make the intention of increasing the farmer’s income less inequitable than it is at present.
There is only one way of doing that: increase in produce per acre. There admittedly has been advancement on this count but with the exception of cotton, it is not exceptional and rewarding. For cotton, the government should be grateful to scientists who developed resistant and high yield seed in the late eighties and early nineties. That has given cotton a boost and made it survive even during periods of negative conditions.
The increase in yield is generally evenly distributed though undeniably big landowners have a big edge over small farmers. It is the same case as per capita income that is divided between two unequal incomes and an average is obtained that narrates the wrong story. Still, cotton growers have generally benefited from higher produce of up to 35 per cent.
The yield is more uneven in the case of wheat that, we are told, is about 6.7 percent per hectare. This is not a reportable increase but not to be grudged because every grain counts. But the average is higher than the past because people with vast land holdings have done well due to their ability to invest more in inputs. The small farmer’s yield is by and large the same as before as is resources remain negligible.
