Institutional innovation

Whether it is agriculture or any other sector the behaviour of public sector research organisations represents an essential link in the construction in the theory of induced development. If modelling is important than the conceptual issues need to be understood in the context of the model that is constructed.
In agriculture, responses to any constraint, is subjected to the innovation taking place. That is at least the assumption that is made. When the factor prices are exorbitant, as they are in the food sector at the moment then the theory suggests that innovation should take place. That innovation does not take place is because of the failure of the public sector research organisation to comprehend the changes of factor prices relative to product prices. If this was accepted as a policy in developing countries, then there would be ease of constraints on growth imposed by inelastic supplies of other factors like land and water - not labour in the case of Pakistan.
In developing countries, the conceptual base is not only weak but in some cases non-existent. There are other issues that come up with rising prices due to failure of productivity that would be visible in the disaggregated agriculture sector of the economy. That has to do with linkages with the international trade sector. The terms of trade are already adverse but when the input induced prices are inflationary then the forex market is also adversely affected as the products are not in comparative advantage any more.
The actual fact is that neither the government of the day nor the public has any idea of innovative activity or its benefits. Had there been this kind of activity then the least that could be done was to carry out agrarian reforms as the least intervention especially where the Wadera and feudal system has been the bane of any equity intervention. That aside in developing countries (and Pakistan is no exception) the agriculture sector and the other sectors are organised along master and slave situations. New management concepts have never been understood - much less utilised.
There is so much to do that it is mind boggling. Pakistan continues to have the most primitive organisational structure in the management of resources. One is therefore not surprised at the way the country's resources have been frittered away. The jokers here are not even aware of the socialisation effect of the sector. The results have been disastrous. Since the stagnation in agriculture productivity the requirement was for a prescription, based on diagnostic ability.
The tragedy of Pakistan is that there are very many 'yes men' of the nodding variety who have refused to understand the value of independent thinking. Where research is only in the public sector the reforms and improvement in the institutional structure become essential. It is in this realm that the work in developing countries is wanting. Anyone who does so does it at his own peril. The productive use of resources can only be determined by the opening of new avenues due to the technology having changed for the better.
Together with this technological approach to improved productivity the social sector has to be opened and those that were left behind were to be lifted by their boot strings so that they become part of the national equity sector. This perforce requires that the technological sector has to be in harmony with the social sectors. Such was not the case in the green revolution and we see that a lot of people have suffered in the process. Even the chemical interventions have left most of the soils toxic. The production-productivity axis that was supposed to improve with time actually became a halter round the necks of farmers, as the necessary and essential elements of knowledge had never been transmitted to them.
So the induced innovation model is or should be automatic. That is not as it should be and the main reason for this is the nature of human resources recruited as a result of connectivity. Caste system came in to play and ethnicity came in to play. Normally any minority group that comes in to play has energy that develops themselves and the country to new levels and this is seen in the Christian community not the others. The sect is intrigue-oriented.
There are two issues in the induced model of agricultural development. First, the induced model is from within and the technological and institutional changes would be from within. This means that Adam Smith's much maligned hidden hand philosophy is not valid anymore in agriculture. This means that there has to be additional responsibility on policies and processes in agriculture. Failure to harmonise them can have consequent adverse effects. That means that it is not enough to build research organisations and to live in the premise of being an apex research station when the work required is very much of a pristine nature and battling against odds.
The second issue is that are the international agencies conducive to this kind of induced model? The answer is not so simple. For the MNCs are linked to the international input order and it is their business to see that profit for them is a kind of greed. Since they have no or hardly any competition they see to it that the production format is made incompatible with the international trade regime.
In other words, it helps the Western institutions to make the equation such that the products of the developing countries lose their comparative advantage. That in the wake of the WTO enables the West to export more to the developing countries. Market distortions for instance, in the case of Pakistan, have been such that the systematic displacement of farmers is taking place, putting an extra burden on the urban sector. That suits the West, which can then revel in their trade and manufacturing policy.
The third factor that is important for consideration was the public sector that is stagnant for the reasons already attributed to the way recruitment of relatives is done without recourse to merit. Merit and lack of these policies go hand in hand with the worst that can be done to the system. Normally what is done by the local chiefs is to invoke the name of elite from the international scene and let it be known to the decision-makers that the person is the most efficient one.
Keep on dropping names and keep on making it worse for the country. There are people in the government who were telling everyone during Musharraf's time that they had access to his bedroom. Bedroom did you say? The ordinary person stands vilified today because of the lack of opportunity and equality of conditions. Railways, PIA, Wapda - you name it we have made a hash of all these institutions.
Call ourselves a nation? We do not have the rudiments of decency. All we can do is abuse and shout at each other. What a way to go on the TV? You are looking for electricity thieves, Wapda should look at itself and its policies or look for the land grabbers and owners who have got Kundas on the 11 KV line. Look for ministers? Look at the powerful. Why are you making such a song and dance about it?
Every and each one of us has to do well by the country. Yet you have foreigners here as expatriates trying to tell others that they are the patriots. Where were they when they ran away from the country having partaken of all the benefits from this country? They will have to work and die here. That is the last thing that they can do for this country or go back to the country they call their own. Some one will have to do it? Whose job will this be? This is worse than cleaning the Aegean stables.