|
The past year has amply demonstrated the emerging challenge of food shortages for countries around the world.
In keeping with this trend across Pakistan, the sharp rise in prices of key commodities has come up as a major challenge for a variety of important stakeholders ranging from high ranking policy-makers to consumers at the lowest end of the grass roots.
During this time it has become abundantly clear that Pakistan's failure to revitalise its agriculture sector has cost the country dearly in terms of heavily compromising food security.
The rising cost of food commodities has essentially meant that Pakistan has been forced to spend significantly more than what it spent in previous years for the same volume of imported food.
Pakistan has also faced a fast mounting challenge due to the fast rising price of oil around the world. For the moment, there are few signs of oil prices retreating significantly which is hardly optimistic news for countries like Pakistan.
This trend essentially means that countries in Pakistan's position with regards to oil would have to cope with the fallout from oil related trends.
The link between commodity and oil related costs with their resultant impact on the overall economic trend, however poses a formidable challenge for Pakistan's policy makers who must now comprehensively review the outlook for the agriculture sector.
Such a review would have to be based on examining an entire set of policies which are relevant to production of key crops, with the objective of closely assessing output trends over the past many years.
Such an assessment must also take note of comparing Pakistan's agricultural output with that of its surrounding countries in the South Asian region.
Evidence widely available has often demonstrated that Pakistan has consistently remained behind India, its larger neighbour, in terms of the average yields for its main crops.
Key elements
Such an assessment can not ignore the relevance of the two key elements which have hampered Pakistan's prospects.
On the one hand, the failure under successive governments to actively help farmers improve their yields, has only pulled down overall productivity.
In stark contrast, Indian farmers have received hugely subsidised electricity to run their tube wells to draw out sub-soil water for irrigation of crops.
Among other supporting mechanisms, Indian farmers have also received support by way of improvements in their quality of seeds while other vital elements such as affordable farm machinery and fertilisers, have been provided by the state.
Ultimately, Indian farmers have done significantly better than their Pakistani farmers, mainly because the Indian government was prepared to offer the kind of support which farmers in Pakistan were denied.
On the other hand, Pakistani farmers have suffered badly because of the virtual absence of supportive marketing mechanisms which could provide them the best prevailing prices of their produce.
Instead, Pakistani farmers have often found themselves at the mercy of unscrupulous middle men who have often ripped off huge process just by virtue of facilitating the sale of a given crop.
Going forward, the Pakistani government has failed to oversee the development of commodity markets which would help farmers come in contact directly with the end users and end buyers.
A successful venture to allow farmers to receive significantly improved yield by cutting out the middle persons could help improve the returns to Pakistan's farming community.
The writer is a journalist based in Pakistan.
Send us your comments
TERMS AND CONDITIONS
Gulf News may edit comments for length and clarity but will not change the tone of the message. Comments will only be accepted if all fields (including name) are filled correctly and the message isn't abusive, defamatory or offensive. The Gulf News website will only print your first name along with your comment. Please state in the message if you wish to remain anonymous. All comments sent may be forwarded for use in the Gulf News newspaper.
|
