In a recent meeting, the Federal Committee on Agriculture, which now stands revived after four years, has fixed crop targets for the provinces for this Kharif season.

Federal Finance Minister Ishaq Dar has directed the committee to meet twice a season for pre-season targets fixing and strategies to achieve them, and mid-season review of the progress. That makes four meetings a year, unlike previous two.

Punjab, with 80pc share in the country’s agriculture output, has been told to sow cotton on six million acres, rice on 4.4 million acres, sugarcane on 1.8 million acres, maize on 1.12 million acres, moong on 32,000 acres and mash on 51,893 acres.

Punjab has not hired a single field assistant since 2008. Currently its field assistants’ deficit is over 800, which makes over 30pc of its total manpower of 2,400 FAs. With this kind of situation on the ground, how these targets could be achieved is hard to imagine

But the FCA revival needs to be welcomed with caution because ground situation in its ‘absence’ has worsened a lot. It went into hibernation after the 18th amendment on the stated logic that provinces now own the sector, and they must plan and implement on their own. As always, the FCA mandate was based on national food and economic planning (national needs, inputs situation, historic trends and export possibilities). It plans for the provinces, where ground realities hardly match these plans. For want of implementation strategy, these targets look increasingly perfunctory. The FCA, apart from its own planning, also needs to push provinces for a more effective role so that national planning looks more real. With the PML-N ruling both the federation and Punjab, the province has been provided with a unique opportunity to develop its agriculture. It must be grabbed through joint planning and execution.

Punjab suffers from declining professionalism, and manpower deficit. In the current context, it is the provinces, rather districts, which have to own the targets and ensure results. Unfortunately, that is the point where the missing link has developed. As much perfunctorily as the FCA, the provincial government set targets for the 36 districts – according to their ecological and other endowments. Theoretically speaking, it is the executive district officer (EDO), agriculture, who should now be ensuring results. But, unfortunately that is precisely where things get bogged down because of different reasons. Firstly, there is a huge overlapping between the Extension Wing of the Agriculture Department and district setup. Both have no idea where the jurisdiction of one stops and the other’s starts. And these district setups are involved in multifarious activities, from polio campaign to controlling dengue fever.

This has led to gross undermining of professionalism at the ground level. All international agencies (like the World Bank and the Asian Development Bank) involved in agriculture monitoring have regularly pointed out this deterioration at the most crucial (district) level, but it is still going on. Manpower shortage has also played its part. Punjab has not hired a single field assistant since 2008. Currently its field assistants’ deficit is over 800, which makes 30pc of its total manpower of 2,400 FAs. With this kind of situation on the ground, how these targets could be achieved is hard to imagine.

The provincial focus has been on the information and communication technology (ICT) to replace manpower in the fields It is being done without realising that entire agriculture cycle is run through interpersonal experiences and, for that reason, the focus is shifting back to humans. In the Indian Punjab, which has only 12,000 villages against 25,000 in western Punjab, there are over 1,000 field assistants in addition to massive manpower provided by educational institutions, which run independent research and extension centres in each district. The entire diversification and intensification programmes are run by these centres and helped by field assistants through demonstrations on the farms. Contrary to it, the Punjab government has not spent even a penny on the field demonstration since 1996.

The ICT provides monitoring arm. But question arises what is the monitoring for if there is no activity on the ground. In the absence of field work, what is the use of the monitoring gadgetry? That is why the FCA targets have stopped touching the ground and the farmers. In the last few years, the cotton acreage is on the decline and the planners have only followed the ground realities by slashing targets. Moong, which was sown over 100,000 acres, has now dropped down to 32,000 acres. Gram fluctuates between 250,000 tonnes to 750,000 tonnes, without official intervention.

Published in Dawn, Economic & Business, May 19th, 2014