Globalization of agriculture will have far-reaching consequences for Pakistan and yet it is little studied, little realised and little known.

Pakistan signed the WTO in 1994-95, but no studies have been done in the past 10 years under any of the four successive regimes which is almost pitiable.

What we require today is a through study of our own crops, their possible markets abroad, our competitors in the importing countries, prices and market channels in favourable countries and the plans to increase yields of our specific crops for export purposes.

We will suffer tremendous losses if we do not increase our yields to those of the advanced countries and our farmers will have to face utter poverty which will affect our total agro-industry including textiles. Yields of many crops in the developing countries are three times more than ours and nothing has been done little has been done to close the gap.

No doubt, the possibility of improvement is there but methods to achieve it under the present system are discouraging, because of the failure to impart proper training to the concerned students. Usually, the latest technical books are not available and if available, teachers show little interest, nor students are able to study books by themselves.

Having lost almost 10 years, we have to rush our plans to achieve maximum yield and quality within the shortest possible time keeping in view crops such as wheat, cotton, rice, corn, pulses and fruits like mango, guava, papaya, zizyphus varieties, apples, apricots, grapes, peaches, lychee, longan, new varieties of chicku, citrus and seedless grape fruit, vegetables, flowers and herbs including post-harvest of all of them. The focus of this article is mechanisation of agriculture.

The age-old thinking in the whole South Asia is that mechanisation is costly and uneconomical and will create unemployment by displacing farmers. This layman's attitude has crept into the minds of some planners.

In 1965, I mechanised my cotton crop fully except for the harvest. All operations like seed-bed preparation, making ridges and furrows, planting on ridges, placing fertiliser one inches below the seed and two inches away from both the sides, inter- cultivating five times, plant protection by spraying with tractor- mounted 40 feet long boom sprayer five times and defoliating for ease and cleanliness were carried out mechanically which took almost 7.5 tractor hours.

The cost of these operations was 16.66 per cent of the gross return. To cultivate 50 acres, two men were engaged for watering and other odd manual jobs. Seed rate was also reduced to about one third (six pounds per acre).

Total inputs including harvest accounted for about 30 per cent of the gross return. The yield doubled because of precise equidistant placement of seed and fertilisers and control of weeds and disease by machines.

The secret lay in a row crop tractor with a tool bar for mounting a number of implements like ridgers, planters, fertiliser attachments, 40 feet boom sprayer with adjustable height over the plants and nozzle positions and inter-cultivator shanks, tines and sweeps.

The operations were perfect and plant protection chemicals used were according to the size of plant with full coverage and less than half the quantity used ordinarily. This equipment could easily be adopted for mechanisation of corn, vegetables, castor, ground nuts, all types of row crops etc.

In the 60's, all tractors were imported. Two types of tractors- standard and row crop- were available. The difference between the standard and row crop tractor was that the latter's front wheels were at the same width as the rear wheels or had two front wheels placed close by, to look like tricycles or a rickshaw, but otherwise it was the same tractor.

The rear tyres were narrower, but of the same height. Rear tyres could also be adjusted to 60, 64, 68 and 72 inch widths or to 72, 76, 80, 84 inch widths for spacing of different crops. Implements of all types were also imported though in small numbers.

Once Pakistan began manufacturing tractors, no notice was taken of row crop tractors. The defect in the standard tractor is that with a ridger, it can make ridges only once and cannot work in the ridges for the second time as its front wheels have a narrower spacing than the rear tyres.

This destroys ridges made in the first operation and therefore no further mechanised operations are possible. The mechanisation of crops therefore ended then and country has suffered for the last 30 years.

Now, the only and quick solution to mechanisation is to allow the import of row crop tractors from 30-100 horse power and modify the assembly lines of the Pakistan-made tractors - both for standard and row crop models. Another immediate step should be to allow free import of implements.

In terms of general economics of mechanisation, taking cotton as an example, it should be remembered that making good ridges and dressing them at the same time, takes one hour per acre. Planting seed and simultaneous drilling fertiliser takes half an hour.

Fertilising, again if needed by drilling, takes 20 minutes and spraying with a 40 feet boom sprayer takes 15 minutes each time and only one hour and a quarter if done five times.

If crop is the cotton and stalks have to be shredded it takes one hour. Thus a fully mechanised cotton crop, except harvest, takes half an hour, but training is needed.

Mechanical inter-row earthing up or de-weeding has another advantage of saving on cost of herbicides and protecting soil fauna responsible for soil renovation from being killed by these chemicals, which by reducing soil fertility also lower yields. Herbicides kill annual weeds but promote perennial weeds and these affect existing as well as future crops.

There is a fashion among non-technical planners to give free reigns to their fantasies. One example is small tractors for small farmers is being talked about for past half a century.

Unfortunately, a small tractor of half the horse power of a bigger one, does not cost half as much, it does not consume half of fuel oil, its spare parts do not cost half as much and does not need half an operator.

Above all its output in terms of field operations is less than half of the other. In general, owning and operating cost is 75-80 per cent of a large tractor and therefore it is uneconomical to own and operate it.

In Sindh, tractors of minimum 50-65 horse power range are suitable. Bigger tractors of 80-100 horse power will he more economical, but local manufacturer's lobby has opposed their imports, or suggested heavy import duties and sales taxes and the government has innocently surrendered, much against the interests of the country and economy.