THE output of four key crops — cotton, wheat, rice and sugarcane — has increased this year as compared to the last year. Yet, the agriculture and livestock sector has under-performed during this fiscal.

In order to exploit their under-utilised potential and ensure rational interaction of demand and supply forces, action is required for the development of new and better varieties of seeds, as well as for economical use of water, farming and harvesting technologies, treatment of crop diseases and supply chain management.

Before coming into power a year ago, the PML-N had presented in its election manifesto a 15-point agenda for agriculture and food security, which covered the above-listed and many other issues. However, most of the promised programmes remain unimplemented. The ones that have been initiated, primarily by the provinces — in whose domain agriculture falls — need to be accelerated and synchronised with the broader objective of food security.

In its election manifesto, the PML-N had presented a 15-point agenda for agriculture and food security. But most of the promised programmes remain unimplemented

For example, the agricultural credit programme was to be reformed so 50pc of total agricultural loans would go to small farmers. The federal government and the State Bank of Pakistan had to play a key role in it, and the provinces were supposed to coordinate to obtain this objective.

But no big headway has been made in this regard.

Another thing the PML-N had promised was to enable landowners to get agricultural credit on the basis of the market value of their land, rather than on the outdated produce index. This has also not been initiated so far either.

Source: PCGA, PSMA, SUPARCO

It was also promised that Pakistan would be converted into a net exporter of food and high-value crops by modernising agriculture, including the harvesting system and post-harvest storage. Some steps have been taken for improving Passco’s storage and constructing steel silos in Sindh and Punjab on private-public partnership, but there is a need for much more efforts.

In nine months of FY14, the country saw a food trade balance of over $500 million on higher export earnings from rice (20pc), seafood (about 9pc) and fruits (19pc). Exports of pulses and oilseeds showed an impressive growth of 85pc and 196pc respectively.

“This is where the efforts to promote production of minor crops, which have been going on for the last four-five years, are showing through,” says a senior official of the Ministry of National Food Security and Research. “And this is where more action is required.”

For example, faster implementation of the olive cultivation project, combined with already growing output of other oilseeds crops, can help in import substitution and export enhancement.

The Punjab government has also been working to improve supply chain management and recently invited an Expression of Interest from private sector companies to participate in the project.

In the livestock sector, foreign aid agencies like USAID and JICA have joined hands with the Sindh and Punjab governments to increase livestock population. Both provinces are also running their own programmes to facilitate animal breeding, contain mortality rate and provide livestock breeders necessary training on best practices.

But projects for artificial insemination, milk production and milk processing are either being run entirely by private sector companies, or with very little official support. Punjab has recently announced a huge project for camel breeding in collaboration with a Middle Eastern country, and Sindh has been working on setting up a cattle city near Thatta. Both projects would take time in producing outcomes.

“At the core of our agricultural and livestock development plan was the concern for their greater integration into other productive sectors of the economy,” says an official of the Ministry of National Food Security and Research.

He adds that FY14, being the first year of the new government, was primarily consumed in resolving provinces’ grievances over water distribution, spadework on the proposed small water dams and in keeping the perennial power crisis from deepening. “In FY15, provinces would find undertaking agriculture and livestock projects much easier after overcoming part of their water and power woes,” he says, while boasting of measures like the recent launching of a 1000MW first-ever solar power project in Punjab and the installation of hundreds of tubewells powered by solar energy in Balochistan.

One important aspect of the agriculture and livestock sector’s performance in FY14 was that despite generous budgetary allocations for research, no kind of breakthrough research took place. Provinces either under-spent on research or a large part of the allocation went for non-core operations.

In nine months of FY14, Sindh, for example, spent less than 75pc of the total Rs400 million budgetary allocation, and less than 25pc of the total amount “actually went into the efforts for identifying alternative seeds of crops and breeds of livestock [a major stated objective of the budgetary allocation],” concedes a senior official of the Sindh agriculture department.

Published in Dawn, Economic & Business, May 26th, 2014