A small farmers-specific food security/crop maximisation project expired in June this year without full utilisation of funds allocated for Sindh. This left small farmers in the lurch. Accounts opened for operating revolving funds of projects in different villages are frozen.

The project — Special Programme for Food Security and Productivity Enhancement for Small Farmers’ — was launched in July 2007, with intended expiry in June 2012, throughout the country in which 1012 villages were to be covered.

It was being executed by the Ministry of Food and Agriculture initially for growers with landholdings of 25 acres or less who were to be enrolled through village organisations (VOs).

These VOs were to operate a revolving fund for which farmers had to share money collectively to qualify for loan from government. A total of 147 VOs were formed under project and 132 were registered in Mirpurkhas, Sanghar, Shaheed Benazirabad, Khairpur, Naushahro Feroze and Larkana districts. Sindh was given an allocation of Rs1,607 million out of a total of Rs8,013.5 million of the project cost.

The VOs were headed by a president and general secretary. The two, along with an agriculture department representative, jointly operated the revolving funds. Till the financial year 2009-10, only 67 registered VOs were given funds between two to three million rupees as they had made their required contribution. Each farmer was to deposit share money/fee of Rs250 against each acre of land to get a loan.

Small farmers gained access to inputs and implements like pesticides and fertilisers on company rates. VO officials are still recovering loans advanced to farmers and their accounts still hold funds of varying amounts. “We were deriving benefits from the project and are still making recovering loans but I don’t know where those should be deposited as our accounts couldn’t be operated since June”, says Manthar Ali Jiskani, owner of four acres in Thari Mirwah, Khairpur Mirs and president of the VO Dubi village. He says that around Rs500,000 are lying in the account and farmers are returning loans with 10 per cent mark-up.

Shah Nawaz, president VO Ghulam Mohammad Leghari, believes that before the launch of this project, farmers like him used to depend on dealers of fertiliser and seeds who provided these inputs at exorbitant rates.

“Under the project we accessed inputs on company rates and offered the same with margins as low as Rs20 to Rs30 per bag”, he says. His VO got Rs2.5 million initially and with the addition of mark-up, the total amount rose to three million rupees.

“We will deposit the money in the personal account of our president or general secretary until the government reaches a decision”, he says and adds that had this project continued it would have made small farmers self-reliant.

Another farmer of VO Dato Dasti, Khairpur Mirs, says that while the project was benefiting farmers, agriculture officials didn’t respond properly and didn’t give the required attention.

“Farmers Field Schools worked only in first season and then I didn’t hear of them”, he says, adding that crop trials were held in the first six months. According to him, Rs500,000 is lying in the frozen account.

Project officials say that the government had planned to withdraw half of the revolving fund’s by June 30, 2012 and recover the remaining half from farmers in installments. The idea behind this was that growers would be able to take care of their issues on their own as they would have enough money in their VOs in the shape of mark-up. Roughly, farmers were provided Rs6,000 to Rs8,000 per acre for wheat cultivation and Rs10,000 for the cotton cultivation.

Farmers were to be trained by field officers of the agricultural department.

They were to be taught how to use pesticides and fertilisers and the quantum of irrigation water needed for a crop. Farmers were learning better method of farming.

Under the 18th amendment, the project was handed over to the Sindh government in July 2011 which decided to allocate Rs10 million for the project but the funds could not be utilised until March 2012. No activity was seen during this period. In the meantime, the federal ministry of food security was created which restored the project on April 2. But funds were not released for the project.