KARACHI: Vice President of Pakistan Businesses Forum (PBF) Ahmad Jawad said that a fundamental policy challenge for the Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif is tackling food and hunger, an issue that has remained in the backdrop for years. For countries in the global south, agriculture lies at the core of addressing hunger.
He said Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has disrupted global supply chains to a point where Pakistani farmers will lose out a great deal—largely because of an increase in the price of wheat in international markets, which is beyond the government-instituted support price. However, bigger concerns are inaccessibility to the former financial sector and the role played by our banks.
“Bankers have no institutional means at their disposal to gather meaningful data about farms and rural businesses. They are simply not equipped to make informed investment decisions as far as Agri-financing is concerned. And with non-existent formal financing, agricultural transformation is not possible. So, our population will continue to face food supply issues. Farmers are at the mercy of arthis’ and local money lenders — though they at least bring some liquidity to farm operations,” he said.
Alongside these financial hurdles, the agricultural production side has been suffering too, and local governments seem to be exacerbating it with transparency issues. For instance, the government of Punjab, Pakistan’s most populous province announced in January wheat sowing acreage target of 16.21 million, down from its initial goal of 16.70 million. At the same time, it also announced massive expansions in sowing of potato and oil seed crops, citing those as cutting into the wheat goal.
Currently, Pakistan government documents claim that agriculture contributes to 19.2 percent of its GDP, employs 38.5 percent of the country’s workforce and supports the livelihoods of at least 65-70 percent of the population. Agricultural production grew by 2.7% nationwide in financial year 2019-20 and the trend continued into FY2020-21 despite a pandemic however in 2021-22 purely farmers’ efforts were seen before the numbers of the economic survey.
However, during this period, under the Imran Khan government, Pakistan also shifted to being an importer from an exporter, with wheat and sugar figuring as primary import commodities while the country was reeling under the pressure of food inflation.
So, what exactly happened with regards to Pakistan’s agricultural produce? Did the country undergo a ‘Green Revolution’ akin to India’s in the middle of the 20th century?
Jawad believes Pakistan’s agriculture too suffers from the bane of colonial legacy and is a classic case of concentration of resources among small, powerful cartels. Despite increased growth, Pakistan’s ‘green revolution’ damaged local ecology and promoted “inefficient water use practices” by political back farmers, leaving vast tracts of land uncultivable.
PM Shehbaz Sharif and his cabinet will not only have to address these historical problems but also continue to grapple with the debilitating effects of climate change on the agriculture sector. So what of any possible solutions? Ahmad Jawad, seem to think innovation is the need of the hour.
For instance, he listed out terracing to “improve soil health” and expanding tech by way of lesser land levelling and solar-powered irrigation to keep water use and pollution in check.
Jawad on the other hand, look to the China Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) for answers, precisely for agricultural cooperation between officials of the two countries while he stresses the need to “revamp the seed sector” and streamline distribution.
He called for the inclusion of more “agro-based projects” in CPEC to expand productivity in the country.
Copyright Business Recorder, 2022
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