Imagine a farmer working tirelessly under the scorching heat to cultivate his land, nourishing his crop the way a parent nurtures their child. He works hard in the hopes of his harvest filling not only his table but also the tables of thousands across the country. He prays for the monsoons to quench the thirst of his land, so that he does not have to rely on the much costlier tube well solutions, having been failed by the irrigation system long ago. After months of toiling away in the fields, when he finally reaches the local market to reap the reward of his effort, he is forced to sell the output of his blood, sweat, and tears at crippling prices, which, at times, do not even equate to the cost of production. A share of whatever little he makes is pocketed by parasitic middlemen. This is the reality of the backbone of our economy.
Despite agriculture contributing 24 percent to the GDP and providing 37.4 percent of the total employment of this country, the belief that agriculture is the backbone of our economy has been reduced to a hollow cliché. Agriculture, though highly neglected by those in power, is the second largest export industry of Pakistan, outmatched only by textiles. The reality is that most other industries, including textile, borrow resources from agriculture. According to a study conducted by the Bank of Punjab, the direct and indirect contribution of agriculture within the domestic economy is estimated at a major 45%. This is further supported by the fact that for each percentage increase in the production of cotton, there is an almost 3 times increase in the export of textiles by Pakistan. Therefore, every major sector is associated with agriculture in one way or another.
Pakistan is a country known for the high quality of its crops; however, the Ministry of National Food Security and Research reports that within the semester ranging from September 2023 to March 2024, over 3.5 million tonnes of wheat were imported into the country from the international market. This situation raises questions about the national decision-making and policies, as the repressed farmers of this country have failed to benefit from them; rather, the crops that they harvest are being imported by the government.
The year 2022 was a flood year. These destructive floods destroyed millions of acres of domestic crops, leading to the government allowing the private import of wheat in order to meet public demand. The policy of not implementing a ceiling on the amount of this import turned out to be counterproductive as the local market became flooded with a surplus of wheat, resulting in a price drop for the local harvest due to the sheer amount of extra wheat piled up in the government inventory. As a result, the local farmers had to sell their wheat crops in mandis at devastatingly low prices, around 2500 per maund (a traditional unit of weight equivalent to 40 kg), which they would otherwise sell around the Minimum Support Price (MSP) as set by the government at 4000 per maund in Sindh and 3900 per maund in Punjab.
This devastating catastrophe shed light on another issue that displays the governmental neglect towards the agriculture sector. The floods were a result of an unprecedented monsoon and melting glaciers, exacerbated by an increase in global warming. According to a World Bank claim, this disaster caused damages costing around 30 billion USD. An unaccounted side of this event is the lack of local water reservoirs and an effective water management system, the availability of which would have allowed the storage of excessive rainwater that could later be used by the farmers. The availability of such infrastructure would have reduced the cost of production of agriculture as it would cut down greatly on the need for tube-well usage that weighs heavily on the average farmer’s pocket. But alas, not only was this water wasted, but it also contributed to the destruction caused by floods.
Unfortunately, this situation was not a one-off event; rather, it is a tale that repeats itself on a yearly basis. According to a report by the Pakistan Institute for Parliamentary Services, Pakistan wastes a staggering 10 trillion liters of water yearly, all due to the deficiency of water reservoirs. Pakistan’s infrastructure holds the water storage ability for a 30-day need. On the other hand, India, our neighbor state, has this ability to fulfill a 190-day need. The need of the hour is for the government to direct investment towards the projects that will increase the country’s water storage capacity and work towards improving the effectiveness of our irrigation system. These policies should aim to reduce the farmers’ dependence on tube wells, focus on rainwater harvesting, and integrate water resource management.
On December 11th last year, Chief Minister Maryam Nawaz Sharif introduced the CM Punjab Solar Program for Agricultural Tubewells, aiming at converting 8000 agricultural tubewells from electricity and diesel to solar energy to reduce the burden of electricity bills and fuel usage for the farmers. This prima facie looks like a great initiative, but when taken into consideration properly, it becomes clear that it is no more than a gimmick. As per the report of the Bureau of Statistics Punjab for the year 2020-2021, the total number of tubewells in Punjab is 1,225,842, out of which 1,040,294 are diesel tubewells, and 185,548 are electric tubewells. The program has a total allocation of Rs. 9,887.42 million, which could be used as an investment in the fragile irrigation system of our country that could have provided solutions that would have benefitted us in the longer run.
Other policies of governments can also be put into question. The CM Green Tractor Scheme, aiming to provide 9500 tractors to farmers at subsidized rates, was allotted Rs. 30 billion. This amount was 46.5 percent of the total budget given to the Punjab Agriculture Department in the Annual Development Program 2024-25. Punjab already possesses a total of approximately 570,000 tractors, and there is a mechanism of rental in villages that is adequate for the current agricultural demands. Therefore, would it not have been better had this enormous amount been invested in diversifying the crops grown in the province or investing in institutions and universities where research can be conducted for producing better seeds? Parallels can be drawn from the policy of Brazil in the 1970s, the National Policy for Agricultural Research, which aimed for the development of drought-resistant and high-yield seeds.
Hence, the bread baskets of Pakistan are finding it hard to secure bread for their own tables. Due to these challenges, many landowners are either considering selling their land or converting cultivable land into real estate. So who knows? The farms where the famous oranges of Sargodha are being grown or the ones where the world-renowned mangoes of Multan are produced might one day end up as a housing society.