WITH 2.86 million hectares of cultivable land — of which1.16m hectares remain unutilised — the agriculture sector in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa is afflicted with low productivity.

The sector is contributing just 14 per cent to the provincial income, which is far below its potential. Its reasons include small landholding — more than 80pc being less than five acres — sowing of low-value crops because of the farmers’ limited access to inputs as well as their poor financial and technical resources, inefficient irrigation (0.93m hectares are rain-fed) and a marked decline in land use.

A weak seed industry, poor research and development, supply-driven instead of demand-oriented production and a lack of appropriate storage facilities are major issues that the sector faces.

The PTI appears to have done little for the farmers of KP who say the ruling party is bereft of new ideas when it comes to promoting agriculture

The PTI claimed in early 2016 that it was working on a new strategy to develop the province’s farming sector that lagged far behind those of Punjab and Sindh. But no concrete plan has been introduced so far.

Fazle Maula
Convener (Khyber Pakhtunkhwa), Kisan Rabita Committee

Mr Maula says the KP government didn’t come up with any programme for either agriculture or livestock sector, except the billion-tree project. “In fact, the billion-tree project hurt the livestock sector. The government banned the grazing of cattle in the mountains of Swat, Dir, Buner and Hazara. Livestock farmers have no other place to take their animals to,” he says. He fears the continuation of the ban will further damage the already struggling dairy industry in KP, noting that a large number of animals from the province are smuggled out to Afghanistan.

Janisar Khalil Khan
Chairman, Ittehad-e-Zamidaran-o-Kashtkaran Pakistan

Neither the federal nor the provincial government has so far initiated any consultation process. “So one can safely say that even if the rulers plan to announce any package for the agriculture sector, the proposed measure will be devoid of any kind of input from principal stakeholders,” he says.

He adds that the indifference is in stark contrast to the assurance that PM Khan gave farmers when he visited Mardan before the polls. He says the government has failed to rescue sugar cane growers who couldn’t sow wheat after the refusal of mill owners to begin the crushing season on time.

Riaz Ahmed Khan
Swat-based farmer

Mr Khan says the government has done nothing for the farming sector so far. He wonders how one could pin their hopes on a government that is incapable of checking the exorbitant increase in farm inputs, particularly fertilisers and pesticides whose prices have gone up in the name of the rupee depreciation. Fertilisers are produced locally and have nothing to do with the exchange rate, he says.

He adds that the province is home to some of the best quality fruits and vegetables, but it lacks appropriate processing and storage facilities. Thus, a large chunk of the produce goes to waste at farms or during transportation, he says.

Jamal Khan
NGO worker

Mr Khan, who works for an NGO that trains rural communities in livestock management, says the only facility that the farmers get from KP livestock officials is the SMS service about animal vaccination.

“But the officials concerned never attend phone calls by the farmers,” he adds.

Khan Zaman Khan
Representative, Kisan Sangat

Mr Khan says he is worried about the seed industry getting little attention from the department concerned. He notes that the farmers either fail to get certified seeds from the market or pay seed traders exorbitantly high rates. “The government is not playing its role... there is no market regulator,” he adds.

State-run research institutions are not coming up with new seeds that are tolerant of climate change and can perform well in a soil that has seen gradual degradation due to the overuse of fertilisers, he adds.

Khalid Mahmood Khokhar
President, Pakistan Kisan Ittehad

Mr Khokhar recalls that the PTI had recognised the importance of the agriculture sector by promising to impose an ‘Agriculture Emergency’ soon after coming into power. He regrets that the party has reneged on its promise and has done nothing as 100-days of its government come to an end.

He also recalls the promise to cut diesel rates for agriculture purpose, and that so far no step to the purpose has been announced.

Mr Khokhar points out that the government has done away with the Rs5bn revolving fund the PML-N government formed last year for the farming sector and that subsidy on fertiliser and pesticides have been brought to naught.

He concludes that the government did extend the flat rate for electricity for tube-wells from three months (announced by the caretaker setup) to one year but imposed a tax of Rs200/horsepower on motors, and thus increased the power tariff by Rs8/unit, as one has to pay the tax whether one uses the tube-well or not.

Sarfaraz A Khan
Former-president, Kisan Board Pakistan

Mr Khan says farming does not seem to be on the priority list of the incumbent government. It has hurt the fertiliser sector by halting or reducing LNG imports. Consequently wheat growers are going to pay the price in the form of higher rates of urea fertiliser, the most important for Rabi crops, he laments.

The government did take a good step by allowing export of sugar and linking the payment of rebate on exports to the mills that would pay the sugarcane growers in time and at official rates. But positive impact of the measure was negated as it didn’t pay the millers the rebate on earlier exports, he says.

Published in Dawn, The Business and Finance Weekly, November 26th, 2018