PUNJAB ultimately set up the much-awaited Kissan Commission last week. The commission will oversee Rs100bn investment in agriculture for the next two years.

The chief minister himself had promised to set up the commission in the third week of March and had since been presiding over preparation meetings to finalise one.

The composition of the commission is an elaborate one, some say too elaborate to be efficient enough. It includes the chief minister as chairman, five ministers (agriculture and allied departments), six secretaries (including the chief secretary), four farmers’ associations, two heads of agriculture-related companies that Punjab owns, two vice-chancellors (agriculture and veterinary universities) , four industrial associations (PCGA, APTMA, PSMA and PAMIMA) and two professors of the Lahore University of Management Sciences (LUMS). The commission can co-opt as many technocrats and experts as it deems necessary, adding to the numerical strength, or as some say rush, of the commission.

In its first meeting, the commission has formed two committees — one for preparing provincial policy on agriculture and the other for development of small farmers. On a positive note, the chief minister has insisted on keeping the commission independent and working through sub-committees — which would have experts from related fields.

The government circles are hopeful that the commission will provide farmers a platform to raise their voice. The major aim of the commission remains: to discuss and address all those issues of the sector which have been raised on the streets in the last one year

Government circles are hopeful that the commission will provide farmers a platform to raise their voice. The major aim of the commission remains: to discuss and address all those issues of the sector which have been raised on the streets in the last one year.

The Pakistan Kissan Ittehad, which mainly led farmers’ protest during the last year, however has some other ideas. Rejecting the commission as ‘too officially dominated, too big to be effective, too urban dominated to assess their issues and having a lure for taking them off the streets’, they have announced a ‘Save the Agriculture March’ for September 21 — merely three weeks away — on the streets of the federal and provincial capitals. It hardly augurs well for the effort on both the sides; the government thinks it has taken a step forward but the farmers insist it is a step backwards.

Farmers do have some points here to make. Will the commission focus on the recommendations as the chief minister promised last March? Out of three dozen odd members, they complain, only four seats have gone to farmers. Another issue for them is filling the commission with urban experts.

The secretaries, along with members from some non-governmental organisations, have always been on the forefront of previous efforts to solve sectoral problems. So were some of the celebrated technocrats. Their input has not been able to solve the issues, rather helped them worsen.

Those technocrats have, in turn, blamed the politicians for failure to take their words seriously and implement them in letter and spirit, and yet the farmers’ issues remain unsolved.

The setting up of the commission is thus an effort in trying the same methodology, which created the problem in the first place. Farmers are taking the effort in the same perspective.

Similarly, the agriculture department has not been able to solve issues and that is precisely why an independent commission was promised. The CM had advised the commission to re-prioritise its efforts and the initiatives of the department.

Farmers argue that problems of the farm sector are well-documented and have been rotting, along with their proposed solutions, on official shelves for the last many decades. The commission will now reinvent the wheel by constituting sub-committees, which would, in turn, hire experts and consume months, for formulating irrelevant recommendations.

Published in Dawn, Business & Finance weekly, September 5th, 2016