September 04, 2006	Monday	Sha'aban 10, 1427

Does Pakistan need a second Green Revolution? Does it need to radically increase its agricultural output to outpace the population growth of 1.9 per cent officially or far more actually?

There is also the urgent need to raise the nutritional level of the bulk of the people, particularly of the lower income groups with critically low protein consumption. India benefited a great deal by the first Green Revolution in the 1960s Pakistan gained only marginally. The share of agricultural output in domestics economy came down from 25.9 per cent in 1999-2000 to 22.5 per cent last year.

An increase in the total food grain output was from 19.58 million tones in 1999 to 31.268 million tones last year. That means an increase of just over 50 per cent in 15 years during which period the population increased by 3.1 per cent per year.

At the same time, the wheat output increased from 14.565 million tones to 21700 million tones, an increase of just three per cent annually. If the population growth had not outstripped the output of wheat, we would not have wheat or Atta crisis with their high prices from time to time.

In India, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh says his country needs a second Green Revolution as an Australian wheat ship berthed at Chennai, the first ship to arrive in India in six years now. It marked the reverse of the move towards “food independence” that began in the 1970s.

India’s population is rising by 1.5 per cent annually and the output of all the crops is rising by 1.25 per cent. The grain output is rising by 1.5 per cent.

In a country where 77 per cent of the people depend on agriculture, crop failures and rising rural indebtedness have resulted in 15,000 suicides per annum in the last five years.

But the first green revolution did not benefit in full the whole of India, the more enterprising Punjab and Haryana benefited far more.

In a country where the average land holding is 2.5 acres, large provinces like Bihar and the UP did not benefit from the first green revolution substantially.

And now a second revolution is coming to India’s farm land in the shape of farm to supermarket sales, which tries to reduce the abuses of the middlemen and the dominant ‘Mandis’ which instead of helping the farmers to get good prices have become the focus of exploitation by local officials, the middlemen and the money lenders.

A breakthrough is coming in India, initially through foreign investment in the agricultural trade and exports. A British firm “FieldFresh” in which a Rothschild of the famous banking family has a 50 per cent shareholding, has entered into a partnership in India with Barti enterprises, a top telecom outfit.

The joint venture will operate on leased out 4200 acres of land (on 78 farms in the Punjab) for producing beans, snow peas, carrots and a variety of other vegetables to export to Europe and the Middle East.

In the West, Tesco, the famous distribution firm sells many of these products. FieldFresh expects an export of $15 million of vegetables on an initial investment of $50 million this year. The chief of the Barti enterprises says he plans a nation-wide retail chain with Tesco as the partner.

Reliance, one of the two largest business groups in India has far more ambitious plans in this area. Mukesh Ambani, announced in June a multiyear investment of $5.6 billion in the agricultural sector to revolutionise it.

He will not confine himself to the lands in the Punjab. He will use farms in West Bengal, Marashtra and other provinces and set up rural centres for providing the farmers their inputs and handling their output.

Supply chains are planned from the farms to the Reliance retail chain of stores as well to export the products. He promises higher return to the farmers, lower prices for the consumers and far better products.

And he hopes to emerge as India’s top mango exporter as well by selling 3600 tonnes annually. He has already begun growing mangos in the land adjacent to his Jamnagar refinery .

The Walmart of America is planning to open its supermarkets in India. It has already done that in China where it has taken the uncommon step of permitting trade unions.

In Pakistan, Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz has been talking of reducing retail prices by promoting a chain of German-Pakistani cash n carry chains. They will buy the farm products from the farmers at fair prices and sell them to the consumers direct.

But the efforts to set up such stores is far from visible and little is known about what is being done in that area. We are far behind, while the consumer prices, particularly for vegetables shoot up. In fact, any kind of disturbance anywhere, not too far pushes up vegetable and fruit prices sharply.

Walmart, the largest US company, tries to reduce prices to the lowest levels. In Pakistan, traders of all kinds always opt for the maximum price as they seek very high profit.

The prime minister’s solution to the price problem is not so much organising supplies from the farms to the supermarkets but increasing the number of wholesale markets in each city from one to two. But that cannot prevent the monopolists and the cartel makers from jacking up prices.

China has given up seeking food self sufficiency at any cost in favour of a flexible and realistic policy. When it can import food grains cheap from abroad, it does not want to overstrain by striving for food self-sufficiency at any cost.

In India, Dr Manmohan Singh is adopting the same pragmatic policy. If fruits and vegetables grown in India can get good prices abroad, he does not want to grow food grains at any cost, but use a part of the large export earnings to buy food grains from abroad.

Pakistan is importing 70,000 tones of black gram before Ramadan through the private sector and 25,000 tones through TCP while 10,000 tonnes imported earlier are available in the market. That is being done to meet the higher demand for black gram in Ramadan.

Our gram production record is poor. In 1990-1991, the country produced 531,000 tonnes of gram and after 15 years it produced 527000 tonnes last year. Also disappointing is the mustard and rapeseed output- down from 228,000 tonnes to 188,000 tonnes over 15 years.

Agricultural experts have been cautioning the government against neglecting or casually treating agriculture but along with a lot of rhetoric. But the feudal lords who rule the roost in the farm belt are able to get higher support prices for their crops all the time and are happy. And the consumer pays a heavy price for that while the middlemen and the artis fill their pockets.

India made good use of the Pepsi cola company before permitting it to distribute its bottles there. The Pepsi company played a significant role in increasing vegetable production and export.

The new varieties of tomatoes it introduced raised its production in the Punjab from 88000 tonnes to 300000 tonnes and its agricultural export last year earned $400 million, but we offer facilities for unconditional sale of almost any foreign product..

Will a real effort now be made for a farm to consumer supply chain through super markets and the vegetable prices be cut or will the artis mobilise their political support and defeat any move to help the consumers?

In India through the efforts of feel fresh, 30-40 per cent of the waste in the vegetable output was eliminated. So, the prices were reduced and the quality of the supply improved. The same can be done in Pakistan if the government takes an initiative and sustains that.