Potatoes don't speak, but what they want to say was heard loud and clear last month when they staged a sit-in opposite the Punjab Assembly building in Lahore last month. They were protesting against their gross devaluation; their lament was their Rs 5 per kilo price. And unlike ever before, they were heard. Not only they but their farm-friends including wheat, sugarcane, cotton and rice also came under discussion in parliament and also at a semi-official consultative meeting. What has gone wrong with the agriculture sector, which employs 43 percent of labour force and accounts for 21 percent of GDP? What incentives can be afforded to revive its potential? These questions came under discussions. At Independence, its share was 53 percent of the GDP as compared to little over 21 percent at present. Although other sectors of national economy were bound to overtake it, it could still retain its supremacy had it received the needed official patronage. How ironic, however, it is that when all elected houses in the history of the country have always been characterized by the presence of legislators from agricultural background, the causes and the practices undermining its inherent potential still remain out of focus. Not that there was not enough in sight to indicate as to what ails the agriculture sector. We knew that half of rural households are landless while 5 percent of population owns almost two-thirds (64 percent) of the country's farmland. While a large majority owns less than five acres the 2 percent households own 50 acres or more, and are less productive. According to a World Bank study, the productivity of larger farms is lower than that of small farms. That disparity in ownership remains a lingering cancer, to which there is no cure in the foreseeable future - an impossibility rooted in history of failed land reforms in 1962 and 1972. But almost all other weaknesses restricting fuller play of the country's agriculture sector are curable. Quite a lot is still possible to restore the socio-economic potential of agriculture sector by way of discouraging outdated irrigation practices, increasing per-acre yield, introducing better seeds and improving the farmer's access to various announced/available facilities and resources.
Both at the forums of National Assembly parliamentary committee and the consultative meeting, a call was made for enhanced allocation for agriculture research, decrease in mark-up rates on agricultural loans and indicative prices for major crops. That the bank mark-up rate be reduced from the present 14 percent to 5 percent is something which is not likely to happen anytime soon, but some concession must be made in view of rising threats to national food security. Prices of fertilizers and pesticides too need to be rationalized, mainly by reining in the high commissions, while the quality of what the end-user gets should be kept under strict official watch. However, the issue begging immediate official intervention is the indicative price structure. As to what price would be available to the farmer for his produce greatly makes his mind to sow or not to sow cotton or any other major crop. A case in point is the cotton crop, which is losing its ground to sugarcane and thus adversely affecting the textile industry that is now left with no option but to import this commodity. The problem arose essentially from the unchecked location of sugar mills in the cotton-growing areas which forced the farmer to give up on cotton and go for sugarcane. Perhaps, relocation of concerned sugar mills may not be possible, but the framer can be incentivized to keep growing cotton by indicating him as to what price he would get for his produce. Another incentive, which is reportedly now under government consideration, is that regulatory duty should be imposed on import of cotton. Accepted, the subsidies and indicative prices would greatly help restore health of the ailing agriculture sector, but then these are merely fix-ups. The real issue is exploitation of the inbuilt strength of agriculture, mainly by improving the quality of inputs in terms of seeds and post-sowing care - the concerns that fall in the ambit of agri research. Isn't it pathetic that investment in agricultural research is just 0.2 percent of GDP, which is not more than fifth of the minimum required to see that Pakistan's extensive arable landscape is productive enough to buttress the much vulnerable national food security.