MULTAN: Farmers across the rural scene in Punjab are not happy with the way the political parties have ignored the Agricultural sector in their manifestos, and readily point out that 66 per cent of the country’s population depends on the sector to earn their livelihood, and its share in country’s overall export is about 70 per cent.

Khawja Muhammad Shoaib of the Farmers’ Vision Forum says the PML(Q) did nothing for the sector during its tenure and now in its manifesto there was “one solitary sentence dealing with such a key sector of economy”. He further points to the failure of the outgoing government towards building water reservoirs, which, according to him, was only because of lack of commitment and sincerity on its part.

The PPP manifesto, he says, does mention its intention to help farmers boost production, but does not talk of any mechanism to do so. Besides, it is also silent on the need to develop water reservoirs, he says.

When it comes to the PML-N manifesto, he rejects it out of hand, arguing that the person who has worded the manifesto has “an unrealistic approach and has no understanding of the ground realities”. On the one hand it talks about the setting up of agro-service corporations while on the other it mentions plans to reclaim and irrigate additional land for allotment to the landless haris and tenants. “This in itself is a huge contradiction,” he says.

Qazi Abdul Razzaq, from Vihari, who has no faith in manifestos, says that shortage of water and the menace of load-shedding had caused a loss of billions of rupees to the farmers, but there was no one in the political arena who would do anything in this regard. According to him, the situation was so bad that if the Agriculture Development Bank of Pakistan starts an honest recovery campaign, “more then 90 per cent of the farmers will be on the road because they will be forced into selling out their lands, and would still have to sell their houses to pay the mark-up!”

Talking of the manifestos, he says the PML(N) has at least tired to address the various sectors of agriculture, including livestock and forestry, but other two parties have just completed a formality without bothering about the community of farmers.

Haji Muhammad Arshad, a progressive farmer from Khanpur, is no exception when it comes to getting disappointed by the manifestos. Political parties, he says, have never tired to understand the problems of the farmers and manifestos are prepared by people sitting the drawing rooms without consulting the man who does all the hard work.