AGRICULTURAL progress, in the past few decades, had shown a diversified trend which had not been sufficient in meeting the food requirements of the population, resulting in escalating staple food item imports. Agriculture would remain so in the foreseeable future.

Despite the four seasons, abundance of land and water resources, hard working farming community, the agriculture is still in disarray. It did not happen overnight, rather we are living with these issues for the past many years on account of various macro and micro problems. It is the oldest profession and the most complex also. In a developing country, one has to go on a very broad front to have a proper agricultural development. It is our mistake that we are trying to rely more on industrial sector for solving the economic problems.

The decision of the government in 1970s to convert the economy from agrarian to industrial has proved wrong. The government intervened heavily to transfer the resources from agriculture to nascent industrial sector. Had the government adhered to the agriculture sector it would have not reached this level. At present the total credit of agriculture sector is far below the industrial one. Assigning it high priority does not mean neglect of the other. It is a fact that the industrial sector cannot sustain itself without a dynamic and rapidly expanding agricultural sector.

Agriculture has an advantage, though the manpower may be ignorant and illiterate but they are well versed about the soil, ecology and the system as compared to the industrial sector people — particularly at more sophisticated industries, where there are barriers of technology and the skilled manpower is scarce.

There are tremendous possibilities to increase productivity — the knowledge and excellent peasantry is present sans the management. The management enigma has rarely been recognized as a problem. Fertilizer, water shortage are recognized as problems but its management at different levels has never been recognized as one. Its graduates are not even imparted any course on management. This issue needs to be tackled by the policymakers uptil now to put the sector on the right track. A breakthrough can be achieved within five years if a fraction of the money — which is being spent on the series of projects — is diverted towards its management with more concentration on the quality of agricultural education. Manpower, which we are producing, is not up to the mark and faces several major challenges.

The successive governments have been announcing various packages like the green tractors scheme or land to landless farmers or increasing the agricultural credit, but without any worthwhile outcome. In the absence of management the research cannot help the extension wing and the policies cannot be translated into the actual package for farmers.

Unfortunately, both big landlords and small landowners are suffering on account of poor management. The big landlords have not been able to become the real agricultural entrepreneur that could bring in the revolution like the other parts of the developed world. The small farmers, on the other hand, have not been provided with the infrastructural support, which could make them really capable of earning an honest living.

After the floods of 1992 an experiment was made in Punjab on an area of about 30,000 acres of land, where every land holding was less than 7.5 acres. The management was reorganized in a manner that all inputs were provided in time for the farmers, harvesting began at the right time through the available technology. The yield was 300 per cent higher than the former yield of that area and 200 per cent higher than the average yield of the country. This was achieved by virtue of better management. If this practice is transferred to the whole country will there by any need to spend over Rs100 billion on food imports annually?

It was only management of the available resources which have brought the countries like America, Australia, China, Israel, etc, to produce surplus foods not only to feed their people but also the rest of the world, as well. Until not very long ago America was an agrarian society but with the revolution in food production through better resource and farm management practices, it now produces over half of the food in the world trade. Israel has transformed itself from a small desert state, poor in water and arable land, into a major exporter of agricultural products. Venezuela is a far underdeveloped country than ours. Rainfall conditions are inadequate to produce good agriculture. Evaporation is more than four times higher than the annual precipitation. In such critical conditions they set an excellent example of managing their meagre water resources as they are producing even sugarcane on drip irrigation system.

From these citations one thing is apparent that first we must manage our resources properly then opt for the technology. It is useless to go for advance technology without management practices. Therefore instead of setting up committees and task forces, to waste both time and resources, to revamp the agricultural sector the government must ensure the supply of agricultural inputs in time and instead of piling up new recommendations priorities be given to core issues.