Agriculture contributes 25 per cent of the GDP and provides employment to 44 per cent of the labour force in Pakistan. Out of the total budget of Rs805 billion of the government for the year 2003-04, the share of agriculture was 0.21 per cent in spite of the recommendations made by the National Commission of Agriculture (NCA) in 1988, to the effect that the share of this sector should be 1.5 per cent of the total budget and agriculture must be given a central role in the development strategy. This reflects on the poor agricultural policy.

Again the total budget of Punjab for the year 2003-04 was Rs159.6 billion in which Rs4.49 billion were marked for irrigation and agriculture. Out of total amount, the share of agriculture sector was Rs0.734 billion or 0.46 per cent of the provincial budget. Similar situation prevailed in other provinces. This shows that agriculture is being treated as an orphan in the federal and provincial budgets.

Again, targets of major crops which occupy nearly 71 per cent of the total cultivated area are fixed: cotton (10.6 million bales), wheat (20.8 million tons), rice (4.55 million tons), sugar-cane (52.5 million tons) and maize (1.8 million tons). But no plans have been suggested as to how the targets would be achieved. Similarly, no target for edible oil has been fixed nor a crash programme developed for attaining self-sufficiency in edible oil in view of the previous efforts which have failed. Meanwhile, import bill of edible oil has gone up from Rs8 billion in 1991-92 to Rs41 billion in 1998-99 causing a heavy drain on the national exchequer. The situation has further deteriorated since than.

The country consumes nearly two million tons of edible oil annually. Out of this, the domestic production is 0.6 million ton. Cotton seed contributes nearly 70 per cent of the domestic production, traditional oil-seed crops like rape and mustard contribute about 20 per cent and non-traditional oil-seed crops like sunflower, canola, soyabean, safflower etc contribute about 9.5 per cent. The tragedy is that a substantial part of it is smuggled across our western borders.

Fixing targets of crop production before sowing season and changing it later due to one reason or the other has become the routine for the successive governments due to lack of crash programmes to achieve these targets. Though some incentives have been announced in the budget for farmers, they are inadequate to achieve these targets. Although the crop yields has increased due to the efforts of agriculture experts but they are still 50-70 per cent below their demonstrated achievable potential at the fields.

Again, an unnecessary prolification of over 200 of agricultural education and research institutes in the country resulted in thinning out our limited financial resources. As a result, 80-90 per cent of the allotted budget is spent on salaries and maintenance and hardly 10—20 per cent is left as operational budget as against a minimum of 40 per cent required according to international standards . This has resulted in sub- standard performance of these institutes.

In the 90’s, millions of US dollars were taken as loan from the World Bank to study as to how to improve our agricultural education and research system. The national and international consultants made a comprehensive study on the constrains at the federal and provincial levels and made detailed and alternate recommendations to remove various constrains for improving our agricultural education and research system to improve our agricultural production.But no action has been taken so far by policy-makers.

According to the Agriculture Census of 1990, due to fragmentation of farms into two or more fragments, the number of below subsistent farms has increased to 39 per cent of the total farms. Similarly the number of subsistent and small farms(below 10 hectares) has increased to 22 per cent. These numbers might have increased further by 2003-04,thus significantly affecting agricultural production.

Policy- makers should have taken cognizance of this serious situation, but the Prime Minister has already announced that the issue of land reforms will not be considered by his government. India has already fixed the lower limit of 17 hectares which can not be further subdivided .This policy greatly contributed to bring green revolution in India. Pakistan should fix a lower limit of 20 hectares beyond which it should not be fragmented.

Again, the expansion of agro-based industry such as sugar and textile mills was mostly based on political decisions rather than on sound economic parameters. This has created problems both for the sugar-cane and cotton growers and the concerned industry. Between 32-40 maf of our surface water is going waste to the Arabian Sea annually since the construction of Tarbela Dam 27 years ago in 1976, thus causing a huge irreparable loss to the nation.

This again reflects on poor performance of the policy makers. First the Kalabagh Dam and now the greater Thal Canal has been made a contentious issue due to their politisation and provincialization.

According to the national press, Government seams to have agreed for the construction of Bhasha Dam. The feasibility study of Bhasha dam will cost one billion US dollars and may take five years.By that time half of the construction of Kalabagh Dam could be completed whose feasibility study has already been completed by taking loans of over $100 million.

There is also a chance that feasibility study of Bhasha Dam may indicate that the proposed dam site is not suitable due to its location in seismic area. Moreover it is located over 300 km away from Kalabagh Dam site and in high mountain area. Its cost of construction and development of means of transmission of electricity will be very high.

Again, if feasible the construction of Bhasha Dam may take 7-10 years requiring further foreign loan of billions of US dollars. By that time the available water storage may decline considerably due to sedimentation of the existing reservoirs unless Kalabagh Dam is completed at the earliest .Needless to say that due to poor planning and mismanagement of various mega projects have failed resulting in the waste of billions of dollars taken as loan thus causing an unnecessary burden on the nation.

These are just a few of the examples of the inept agricultural policies of the successive governments .The present government should seriously review the past mistakes and develop sound agricultural policy and ensure that it is rightly implemented at the field level and its progress be monitored and evaluated to remove various constraints at the right time.

To achieve these objectives the agricultural budget be increased 2-3 per cent initially as against 1.5 per cent recommended in 1988 by the NCA due to increased cost of various items since then. This could be increased later according to the increase in the share of agriculture in the GDP.