STATISTICS are compiled to provide insight into specific areas of life and offer guidance to planners and analysts in their tasks. They are documents containing objective, unbiased and meticulously gathered and tabulated reliable information.

As such, they reflect conditions prevailing regarding given themes and are widely quoted in discussions and comments on issues. Their accuracy is regarded as reliable though that, unfortunately, is not always the case in Pakistan.

However, every once in a while it so happens that statistics may be at variance with ground conditions despite their factually correct depiction of the state of affairs in a sector. The authenticity of statistics remains unquestioned but the conclusions drawn on the basis of facts and figures may be contrary to the realities. They may paint a bright picture of an area known to be under shadows. The part of the State Bank of Pakistan Report for the financial year 2004-05 pertaining to agriculture seems to be very much a case in point in this regard.

The report informs of great strides made by the sector. It is rare that an area of life where the target growth rate is four per cent produces achievements almost double of that percentage. The growth rate of 7.5 per cent for the last year-2004-05, we are told, is the highest recorded in a period of nine years. This must have given a tremendous moral boost to the managers of the sector and filled them with immense satisfaction. This is indeed fabulous progress because growth in agriculture was a mere 2.2 per cent during FY 2003-04. The leap forward is tremendous and nothing short of a miracle.

One of the most important sub-sectors of agriculture is livestock. The SBP report has noted a ‘deceleration in growth’ in livestock that does not only provide livelihood to a major percentage of rural population of Pakistan but is also a source of strength to farmers.

Livestock often, indeed invariably in the case of small, cash strapped members of the farming community, sustains farmers who lean on their animals in difficult times. That this area of rural life showed negative development should be a matter of concern for planners; for farmers, that must have been a huge financial loss. But agriculture producing high growth despite this is indeed a major development.

The high growth was achieved because all other sub sectors ‘made their contribution towards improved performance’ of agriculture. This makes Pakistan’s agriculture sector all the more remarkable and underlines information that the sector, regarded as the backbone of Pakistan’s economy, is in robust health. It is consequently correct to infer that people involved in agriculture must have financially benefited from the sector’s growth; they must be considerably more satisfied citizens in the preceding year than they were in 2003-04 for many previous years.

The report does not state this in so many words but it presumes that due to rise in farm incomes during the period under review, economic activity in rural areas is likely to have been spurred and this probably also reduced rural poverty. It is natural for higher incomes in rural areas to make an all round robust impact on people associated with agricultural activity. One can only rejoice on this piece of good fortune of a segment that is constantly struggling to remain above the line of poverty.

The basis of exceptional good tidings from the SBP is the unprecedented cotton crop of 14.6 million bales and what the country’s official financial umbrella organization describes, despite imports to meet domestic needs, ‘a bumper wheat crop’ of 21.1 million tons. The crop was admittedly a reasonable one but it did not reflect any increase in produce per acre. Moreover, it failed to arrest the escalating price of flour and bring relief to common citizen. But in the books of the SBP, it was high enough to warrant a declaration of satisfaction in the wheat sub-sector.

The Punjab government used coercive methods to meet its wheat procurement target after the previous crop. There is no reason to think that big land owners made their produce available to the government; this elite is-has always been an integral component of the administrative set-up and knows how to protect its interests. It remained outside the procurement net and managed to dispose off its crop profitably.

The small farmer was the one who was forced to contribute a major share to provincial stocks and was thus deprived of an opportunity for a fair reward of his sweat and toil. It is a question if the SBP viewing this situation as ‘helping spur economic activity in rural areas’ and probably also reduce rural poverty should be taken as authentic information. Factually, poverty among the already deprived has been constantly increasing and the last financial year was no different in this regard.

Cotton did not bring reportable relief to growers either. The Trading Corporation of Pakistan (TCP) was assigned to intervene in sector with a view to protecting the interests of farmers-in accordance with the first pledge made by the Chief Executive of the country’s administration on assumption of power on October 12, 1999.

But the TCP dealt with ginners and did mot purchase the crop from small farmers who were left to fend for themselves in an exploitative market. Still, it can be assumed that farmers did benefit from their crop to some extent because of higher produce per acre. But in an equitable system, small farmers would have been substantially better off.

Other crops that contributed to the state of ‘exceptional growth’ in the agriculture sector were rice and maize crops. Rice is big business and a major foreign exchange earner. The number of small farmers cultivating quality rice has been reduced over the years. As such, the crop was no boon for the wretched of the farming sector. Maize is by and large the crop of poor farmers, many of them living in rain-fed areas or cultivating on very small tracts of land. A good maize crop has only a marginal impact on the lives of farmers. It represents a sterile scenario.

There can be no doubt about the veracity of the SBP version of progress on the agricultural landscape but, at the same time, the fact remains that the Pakistan’s food import bill is mounting and prices of food items are on an escalating streak. Pakistan imports huge quantities of edible oils which is a pity because the country has the capacity, the land and the weather for producing edible crops.

Further, there are imports of sugar, tea, wheat and many other items that Pakistan produces and often in plenty. These imports inform that the country may be producing excellent statistics in the agriculture sector but the people are not exactly benefiting from them. One wishes that the statistical view was less impressive and the condition of farmers was better, consumers had to pay less and the country was not as heavily dependent on imports as it currently is.