THE pace of the implementation of Sindh’s agriculture growth project has remained exceptionally slow since its initiation last year. The multi-billion-rupee project is designed to increase farm productivity, particularly for onion, dates, rice, chilli and livestock.

The World Bank has released Rs300m to the Sindh government out of the total allocation of Rs8bn to be spent in five years. But according to the project’s director, Irshad Ansari, hardly Rs15-20m has been released so far.

He, however, admits that the project’s implementation was initially delayed as consultants were being finalised and that is why proper releases could not be ensured. “It is a five-year project, but its timeline will begin from the year when it is actually commenced.”

The main hurdle in the execution seems to be frequent transfers of provincial agricultural secretaries and the project’s own directors. This has disappointed World Bank representatives, who have been writing to the Sindh government about the project’s slow pace of progress.

The Bank has also started negotiating the conditions and modalities with the provincial government, making it difficult to ensure a consistent implementation of the project.

The World Bank officials, who are monitoring the project, have also expressed their concerns about the slow progress of the project in their meetings with farmers and project officers.

For instance, post-harvest losses (PHLs) are the prime focus of the project for all the four crops. In the livestock sector, milk yield has to be increased substantially.

The lack of coordination between farmers and the Sindh agriculture department is too apparent. Recently, the farmers objected to the procurement of some implements for which the government had run advertisements without consulting them

For the paddy crop, PHLs start from the field and culminate at the milling stage, said Gadda Hussain Mahesar, who is leading a focal group for the rice crop. These losses are estimated at 30-35pc, which, he said, could be controlled with technological intervention.

“It can be controlled with modernising rice mills to produce grain that qualifies for export. If we control PHLs, we can increase yields by an estimated 30pc. Currently, only a few mills are producing export quality rice. Suppose, if we are producing 2.4-2.5m tonnes of rice, we can increase it to 3.1m tonnes by controlling these losses.”

Unfortunately, the project’s director has not held a single meeting with farmers in upper Sindh, which is a major paddy growing area. Rice growers are to be given partial support under the SGAP, with growers bearing 30pc of the cost of machinery and equipment and the project covering the rest. And while project implementation units (PIUs) have been formed, funds have not been transferred to their accounts.

Hardly any effort has been made to facilitate the growers of chillies, dates and paddy this season, except for conducting meetings, and that too after WB representatives approached farmers’ bodies on their own.

An officer of the Sindh government’s planning and development department points out that “if we are not able to produce something on the ground in the first year of this five-year project, it will be difficult to produce something in the next year as well”.

He added that it is in this backdrop that a new project director is likely to be appointed. The provincial government is inviting applications through a competitive process for this post, both from the public and private sector, as per the project’s PC-I.

The lack of coordination between farmers and the Sindh agriculture department is too apparent as well. Recently, the farmers objected to the procurement of some implements for which the government had run advertisements without consulting them. Following their objections, reports say, the procurement has been stopped for now.

The farmers’ representatives have also objected to the building of new infrastructure in project’s specific areas for growth. In one such meeting, the Sindh Chamber of Agriculture’s general secretary Nabi Bux Sathio had objected to the construction of new buildings, which, he said, was all about increasing agricultural growth and not for constructing new buildings.

“We don’t see any practical support being offered to us under the project. For example, we told the SAGP management that we need combined harvester and not thrasher for the rice crop, if it is all about increasing the crop’s yield.”

He added that the 70-30 cost-sharing formula has been proposed for all implements, but it is on a 50-50 basis for thrashers, which is not acceptable to growers.

A demand-driven fund of Rs400m and a competitive research fund of Rs180m are part of the project, under which several initiatives could be taken or proposed. But since the farmers have not been taken on board (except for some meetings), these options have yet to be fully explored.

Published in Dawn, Economic & Business, June 29th, 2015

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