Economic loss to farmers

There was always this view that the Muslim league government is industrialist-friendly and inimical to the farmers. What is the issue here? The policy people in the ministry of food and agriculture are experienced enough and the minister himself is from a farmer family. Does he not understand the issue that is before him? The secretary too has been around for a number of years. Agriculture is a tricky business. There are a number of issues that have to be put together if one were to understand the many manifestations. I am going to touch three basic issues that have reduced the income of the farmer and what little he had of disposable income. These are new words for the ministry and it would have been better if they had acknowledged that the vocabulary of agriculture does not understand that vocabulary. When I was first inducted into agriculture by the present PM, I set about learning the vocabulary of the subject and wanted two months before I stepped up to the policy issues. It is my firm belief that the decision making is what one takes it to be. Governments are what they are-imbeciles. To me the Ministry has to be the champion of the rights of the farmers and should not fall short. I can give any number of occasions when I was about to fall short of the political requirements. The first paradoxical issue is that the concept of support price is a disaster for the farmers. Why? Because the others make the most of it while the farmer is on the short end of the stick. Consider the works of Sir Chotto Ram the man who delivered the Muslim farmers from the clutches of the Hindu banya. That was the year 1946. We have now bent ourselves to making the Pakistani farmer into a cabbage and one who despite his nature will fall into the clutches of the money lender this time of Muslim origin. There will be no respite for these farmers.
First, the support price of wheat has to be considered in the context of the agrarian system. More than 93% are less than twelve acres and of these sixty percent are less than 3 acres. Since no further surveys have been done let us assume that these are the correct figures. I had a survey done when I was going to President Hoover center in USA for giving a lecture on Food Security. I wanted to know how many months of wheat did the farmer produce before he became dependent on the urban centers. For a twelve-acre farmer the period was eight months and for the three-acre farmer that period was reduced to two months. That means that for the better part of the year he will have to buy at high prices what he himself grows. Wheat is not a tradable crop as such for only seven percent farmers really trade and these are the large farmers. So the majority of them were dependent on the urban markets from where they purchased the commodity. Is that fair to the farmer that they should sell short and buy long? So what are we doing to those farmers that feed the country? Since they have no voice in the management of the country and since they are considered voiceless, they can be taken for ride. How unfortunate. That is not the whole story. As politicians after politicians have laid bare the countryside unfortunate incidents are emerging. Deaths due to hunger and malnutrition in Thar and even in Sargodha considered as the agricultural area is dogging those that considered themselves as cat's whiskers. When will the regressive effects of such policies spill over in the rural areas? Then it will be hell to play because the law and order will not be possible as the extensive areas require more policing. We now know how inefficient the police are. No matter what you may provide for them they will be enhancing criminality rather than reducing it.
Come to rice and one sees the complete absence of the ministry from the scene. On the one hand the input costs have increased exorbitantly and on the other the output prices have drastically reduced. The ministry in its greater wisdom is mum on the issues that are emerging. That is what happens when you have non-descript working in positions of responsibility. They have no idea how to use the research organisations to change the equations and they do not know how to deliver for the farmer's welfare. They will wake up when the going gets tough. It should have been obvious to anyone that with the emergence of the private sector in the commodities the productivity would increase. That has unfortunately not been looked at. Agriculture is a moving goalpost and yesterday's options are outdated. Here we have idiots who have been guilty of cumulative experience and do not understand the concept of exponential experience. The policy makers would not understand this and would ignore and hope for the best or the will of God to help them. We now know that the will of God works if the humans put in efforts that are not polluted by self-interest. The rice farmer has had it. Ask the growers of Gujranwala and the picture will emerge. Does the government have any right to ask them for the impossible with this kind of policy implementations? The international market has collapsed so that the policy makers can always say that nothing can be done. Ask the Chinese who have perfected the art of marketing. But they will go on making deals with the Chinese without ever learning.
Now the third crop and that is Sugar cane. This time the support price is actually a declining price for the sugar cane has never been at this price in the last decade. The sugar cane factories are owned by elites on both side of the political system. The bread and butter and jam added on can be had by all and they have unity in policy making that is meant to skin the farmer. The price in Sindh is different from the price in Punjab and we are given to understand by the political scion of one political party that they are owners of one sugar mill. Well, why not look at the family assets and if they do not look out I can give you how resources have been siphoned off by over-invoicing and how the NDFC was blackmailed by both the major political parties. The political system is not meant for the country people but for the small coterie of politicians that do as they want to and then when their payback time comes they cry foul. Extreme positions of this kind eventually lead to extreme actions by the powerless. Politicians should be able to put their acts together. The issues are also with the bureaucracy that is showing the worst kind of ignorance and imbecility. What can be done to improve the market economic conditions may be obtained by applying neo-liberal policies? In agriculture the sky is the limit in applying policy solutions. But then the Bengali statement ami ki korbo (what can I do) or kono raqm cholchi (any how passing time) are relevant. The farmer is constrained by the economic system as only he knows. More deaths by starvation are on the line unless the interventions in this sector are iconoclastic. Try!!!