Sitting down for breakfast, lunch or dinner, we rarely think about farmers tilling soil, seeding and harvesting, packing and transporting vegetables. The pristine white grains of sugar bear no resemblance to the fields of sugar cane. We don’t feel the heat, the physical toll of tilling the earth, the anxiety of waiting for a successful crop or its ruination caused by untimely rains or frost.

There was a time the farmer was eulogised by artists, poets and socialists. Paintings such as Jean Francois Millet’s The Gleaners, Allah Baksh’s farmers working the land, or Zainul Abedin’s depictions of the struggle of farmers, seem to be images of the past. The combine harvester is just not as ‘romantic’ as oxen straining to pull a plough in muddy soil.

Sowing and harvest celebrations were an important part of the farming communities of Pakistan. Films from Mother India (1957) to Waahi (2018), remind us that farming is still the backbone of South Asia, even if it is not always acknowledged.

Agriculture grew around rivers — the Indus, the Nile, the Tigris-Euphrates and the Huang He. Surplus produce made trade, economic development, crafts and other professions possible, giving birth to the great civilisations of the world.

Food self-sufficiency is still an elusive goal, especially for countries living at the far edges of economic prosperity. Those few that can grow enough food to feed their populations, such as India, still deal with hunger and malnourishment, because much is exported to support economic growth. It is reported that 30 farmers a day commit suicide in India due to economic difficulties.

As civilisations connected with each other, new varieties of food were also exchanged. The ‘Islamic Green Revolution’ developed agricultural techniques and spread sugar, coffee, rice and citrus across their empire. The ‘Columbian Exchange’, named after Christopher Columbus, had an even greater impact on the spread of food varieties. Potatoes, maize and corn were high in nutrition; tomatoes, chilli peppers, cocoa, vanilla, peanuts and pineapples added more taste.

This new appetite for variety transformed food production. Monoculture, the clearing of forests for large scale farming, the priority given to cash crops, the use of chemical fertilisers and pesticides and the colonising of farmland in other countries that came to be known as Banana Republics, are now criticised for their adverse effect on the environment, economic dependency and political hegemonies.

The novel One Hundred Years of Solitude, by Gabriel García Márquez, is set against the backdrop of the imperialist capitalism of foreign fruit companies. We have seen the harmful effects of political sanctions on countries — for example, wheat from Russia and Ukraine is no longer accessible to African countries who may face imminent starvation.

In all this heady growth of commercial agriculture, the image of the farmer has been lost forever, it seems. Increased urbanisation has cut off rural life for 55 percent of the world’s population, to whom the source of food is the supermarket. Many rural communities in Pakistan are just waiting to head to the city, as they become less valued and more invisible, with little attention after the Green Revolution of the 1960s.

However, just as farming gave rise to cities, today cities are creating opportunities for farming. The city provides land, water supply and labour, the essentials for farming.

In the aftermath of World War I, to deal with food shortages, city dwellers were encouraged to grow food in allotments created on public lands. Japan, where for years empty urban plots were cultivated for crops, has established Citizen Farms. In a Pakistan faced with natural disasters, political turmoil and rising transportation costs, city farms can contribute to local food sufficiency.

Karachi has some modest urban farming initiatives, such as Crops in Pots and the Karachi Farmer’s Market. The University of Karachi developed a policy to grow fruit trees, vegetables and even wheat in unutilised land on the campus.

A growing number of cities have established rooftop farms, school gardens, vertical gardens on the sides of buildings, community farms in empty plots and edible urban forests. Permaculture, or mixed planting of vegetables and fruit in small urban gardens, can produce enough food to feed a family. Urban farming brings back the culture of celebrating harvests, managing food wastage, and greater appreciation of how food is produced.

Durriya Kazi is a Karachi-based artist.

She may be reached at durriyakazi1918@gmail.com

Published in Dawn, EOS, May 29th, 2022