LAHORE:
Pakistan’s agriculture sector has apparently missed a chance to shift advantages of bumper crops, particularly wheat, on to common farmer. Although the federal and provincial governments are declaring yr 2024 as successful, the true stakeholders appear to be sad with the best way authorities have managed the affairs on this crucial sector.
Within the final fiscal yr, ie 2023-24, the agriculture sector grew 6.25%, offering a major help for the nation’s total economic system. Almost all main crops noticed a rise in manufacturing with wheat surpassing the estimated goal. Wheat harvest stood at 31.4 million tons as in comparison with 28.2 million tons within the earlier yr. Being a staple crop, wheat holds a 9% share in agriculture and has 2.2% contribution to Pakistan’s gross home product (GDP).
Equally, rice output surged 34.8% to 9.9 million tons in FY24 from 7.3 million tons a yr earlier. For cotton crop, there was a stunning development of 13.1% in cultivation, which translated right into a whopping 108.2% enhance in harvest that reached 10.2 million bales.
Sugarcane manufacturing, nonetheless, decreased 0.4% to 87.6 million tons in FY24 in opposition to the output of 88 million tons within the earlier yr.
These figures appear promising, particularly for a rustic having greater than 60% rural inhabitants, however some key selections, particularly by the Punjab authorities, have turned the state of affairs unhealthy for farmers, who had been initially celebrating the bumper harvests. The federal government had introduced a minimal help value of Rs3,900 per 40 kg of wheat, nonetheless, the Punjab authorities, beneath an settlement with the World Financial institution, didn’t buy the commodity, leaving farmers on the mercy of open market forces.
“The open market was not paying the minimal help value and if we contemplate a value decrease by at the least Rs100 per 40 kg, which was supplied to farmers, then one can simply guess how a lot cash growers have misplaced,” remarked Pakistan Kissan Ittehad President Khalid Mahmood Khokhar.
He elaborated that wheat was like an engine for farmers; in the event that they received the most effective value, then it had a optimistic impact on different crops too.
“In FY24, wheat farmers received the minimal help value of Rs3,900 per 40 kg, which resulted in a staggering development of 6.25%. This yr, I consider wheat crop will see a setback, triggering a damaging development within the total agriculture sector,” Khokhar warned.
To offset the unwanted side effects of withdrawing from the wheat market, the Punjab authorities has introduced a number of initiatives. An instance on this regard is Kissan Card, by means of which the provincial authorities is seeking to present subsidised seeds, fertilisers and different inputs.
Whereas the federal authorities has allotted solely Rs5 billion for the agriculture sector in present monetary yr 2024-25, the Punjab authorities has earmarked Rs64.6 billion.
The Kissan Card programme includes interest-free loans for 500,000 farmers with a most mortgage quantity of Rs150,000, or Rs30,000 per acre. Complete quantity allotted for this yr is Rs9 billion.
Beneath the Inexperienced Tractor scheme, Rs30 billion can be distributed amongst farmers for tractor buy with straightforward instalments. The opposite key initiative is solarisation of tube wells, for which Rs9 billion has been put aside to shift 7,000 tube wells to photo voltaic expertise.
The outcomes of those initiatives have but to emerge; nonetheless, they’ve produced optimistic vibes throughout all stakeholders. “We welcome such initiatives, however their scope ought to be widened and it should not cater to solely 3-4% of the farming group,” argued Rizwan Malik, a medium-scale farmer from South Punjab. Within the earlier yr, crop yields improved, however prices of inputs like seeds, electrical energy, urea, diesel and labour additionally elevated. This, coupled with the scrapping of wheat buy marketing campaign, ruined the enterprise of farmers, he added.
“A good friend of mine in Sindh managed to reap an excellent sugarcane crop, however he’s struggling to fetch honest funds from sugar mills and that too on time,” he revealed.
“Water shortage is one other problem for a mean farmer. The federal government ought to give attention to revamping your complete course of, ranging from buying farm inputs to promoting crops in markets; this wants plenty of exhausting work with dedication,” Malik added.
Personal sector agricultural specialists stated that the federal authorities ought to play the position of a coordinator to repair points in affiliation with the provincial governments.
They cautioned that consistency was the important thing as Pakistan couldn’t prosper and tackle its current challenges in an effort to transfer in the direction of fashionable agriculture, if secretaries and different essential individuals in key organisations had been modified ceaselessly. Already, the nation’s manufacturing is lowering whereas the inhabitants is growing. “Pakistan is going through a inhabitants explosion; we’ve got extra mouths to feed than our whole manufacturing,” remarked Pakistan Agricultural Analysis Council former chairman Yusuf Zafar.
He added that the agriculture sector should obtain a constant development of over 6% yearly, which was the one method to have surplus crops, “else we must import totally different commodities many times”. Political will amongst all stakeholders is a should to satisfy this goal and take away bottlenecks.
“We’ve an excellent rice crop this yr and our export revenues by means of this commodity have almost doubled up to now one yr,” he stated. Nonetheless, in early December, the European Union intercepted about 77 consignments to verify the presence of fungus and different pests, which required the house owners of the consignments to pay damages. “Such issues must be fastened,” Zafar stated.
At current, there’s a wave of uncertainty among the many staff of federal establishments as the federal government has introduced a restructuring and rightsizing drive, beneath which key departments can be wound up or merged with different entities.
“All people is anxious and is searching for survival; how can key departments associated to agriculture, analysis, and so on work in such circumstances. There’s a want to finish this wave of uncertainty, so departments might provoke work, in any other case issues within the agriculture sector will worsen and put farmers in a susceptible state of affairs,” Zafar added.