Though the country has already been facing a shortage of food stuff due to last year’s floods which damaged the wheat, rice and other crops, but the recent political turmoil and insatiability is going to further aggravate the crisis.

The UN Food Organization report has also voiced such concerns as it says that Pakistan’s growing political instability and lagging reforms are leading to a halt in disbursements from the International Monetary Fund and additional support from bilateral partners.

Due to the last year’s abnormal floods, the situation is more complexed, and it is feared that unrest may increase before the polls. Due to the increasing piles of debt during the current global economic slowdown, the ongoing financial crisis in the country has been aggravating.  Unprecedented external debt will have to be repaid, amounting to a astounding $350 billion in GDP.

And the warning came to forth in a fresh report published this week, titled Hunger Spots June to November 2023. covers the period of 2018, in which the initial warning on deepening food crisis was jointly published by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the UN and the World Food Program. Against this backdrop, the economic experts have called for focusing on the agriculture sector to meet our food demands.

The irony is that Pakistan is an agricultural country. But tomato comes from Iran, other vegetables also sometimes come from neighbouring countries and sometimes a country like Afghanistan is selling us fruit. What kind of agricultural country is this, in which every year we have to buy wheat from abroad at high prices, a large population of which is facing food shortage?

In this country, Almighty Allah has blessed us with all types of weather, deserts, green fields and high mountain peaks, but what is the reason that we have not been able to solve the problem of shortage of food for our people.  Agriculture is the most important because the whole of the country looks to this sector for food provision at affordable rates and that is possible if we grow enough food crops to have enough grains, sugar, pulses and rice for our daily consumption.  The share of agriculture in the national domestic product (GDP) is 22.67% and its share in the total employment is 38%. Although it is very less in terms of the resources that this country has.  Unfortunately, despite having agricultural land, the yield of crops per acre in our country is very low. There are many reasons for this, the most important of which is lack of interest by successive governments for decades, distance from modern technological development, absence of research and technology , low investment, rising interest rates and lack of government level training programs for farmers and landlords.

Low production is hurting Pakistan’s agriculture as well as economy, We have already seen that daily necessities are rising and the prices have exceeded the purchasing power of most consumers and our exports have also declined.  Every government has ignored the agricultural lands. Large housing societies have been built on agricultural lands where food was produced for millions of people. In some meadows which were known for crops production, today there is not even a tree to shade the people. Due to increase in population, we are building houses and industries on cultivable lands. This cruelty was done with a lot of planning and it was mainly during the PTI Government which played havoc with the agriculture land. The former PM Imran Khan greatly damaged the land of the country. He first banned new societies on agricultural lands as soon as he came to the government, but suddenly big industrialists started investing their money in real estate, then suddenly the Govt ban was lifted and Imran Khan announced tax amnesty, in which it was said that you will not be asked from where you got the land and by what means. It was a strange and cruel amnesty and a large number of people benefited from the amnesty and the lands bought at low prices and even in illegal ways became legal in all respects.

And then  huge housing societies started to be formed during the Imran era. Well, this is one way to grab agricultural land, then one plan after another came to destroy agricultural land.

Agriculture has always been an area of neglect event before the Imran Govt. For years, our  policy makers have failed to form any workable agri policy and by setting national production targets for agriculture, livestock, fisheries and forests, we can revive agriculture and other related sectors.

 One would request the government to make at least a 10-year policy for the agriculture sector, including calling agri experts from abroad and discuss technology transfer.

A committee of technocrats should be constituted for this purpose. It should include technical experts as well as academicians trained from abroad in the field of agriculture, the two main agricultural crops like wheat and cotton should be focused in the first phase.

Livestock, milk and beef, and fisheries must also be focused. Deforestation should be made a crime in Pakistan, the area of forests should be increased and severe punishments against deforestation should be added to the Pakistan Penal Code.

The soil of Pakistan is fertile but this soil is being destroyed, there is a need to increase the fertility of the soil by using modern machinery and technology in the fields.

Availability of agricultural machinery at subsidized rates should be ensured along with timely supply of high quality seeds. Irrigation systems should be further improved and farmers should be helped to bring water to the fields through drip irrigation because the less water is wasted, the more our future will be saved.

The quality of herbs and seeds should also be evaluated.

If we want to save Pakistan, we have to save agriculture, if there is more destruction in the agriculture sector, it will be difficult for us as a nation to avoid destruction.

Published in The Daily National Courier, June, 01 2023

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