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Assessing ignorance in agriculture
Dr Zafar Altaf
Every compare on TV and every individual states that Pakistan is an
agricultural economy and therefore that is the sector that will take it
out of any kind of mess economic, social or and political. Take a look
at the statement of any one that matters for the last six decades and
yet the poor farmer gets it in the neck all the time. His poverty is
ridiculed by the industrial sector and every one takes a pot shot at the
farmers. The result is that the farmers have given up on the autocratic
systems of the immediate past. Have you not heard what Allama Iqbal said
‘zara se nam ho to ye mithi bari zargaiz hai’ [if slightly wet this
earth is very fertile]. Not so my friend for Allam Iqbal was talking of
the time when there were no chemical fertilizers. Land had not been
polluted and the population problem was not there and neither were
powerful people greedy, Every-one was in the service of the nation.
With libraries in depleted state it is no wonder that he function of
these libraries is now limited. Is the written word then to be overtaken
by the electronic internet? That is what people ill say and yet there is
no substitute for the written word. What then are the kinds of ignorance
that hits the agricultural sector? There are some categories: Some
things people simply do not know. The gaps in our knowledge are
difficult to comprehend unless some one tells you about them. Simply
stated it means that there is a knowledge gap and if we are unaware of
this how can this gap be filled. In other words we are ignorant of the
ignorance. Some aspects we could have learnt with our science in the
forefront. We hardly do any science in Pakistan. The time and money
required for eliminating this kind of ignorance was not invested in and
in any case this sector is a very fast moving one and the goal posts
keep on changing. Science could have played a large part in our
determination of knowledge. That we chose not to do so was either we
were inferior or we lacked the will to take the knowledge of the west
and question it for what it was worth. We did not do so with the result
that ignorance tends to ride us.
Some know some aspects somewhere or the knowledge is in a book or a
computer but is not in the active consciousness of the people who need
itt when they need it. All this is bound somewhere and we are unable to
get to it. This useful active knowledge has either not been modified or
is locked somewhere. The decision-making in Pakistan is one of
maintaining status quo. So the mindset determines the knowledge level
that one acquires. Experts remain experts because they do not understand
the compulsions of working with either other experts or simple they are
ignorant in the field of agriculture.
There are others who bull their way through with knowledge that the
Chinese would call non-knowledge. These are the people that want to ride
any one in the system. Irrespective of what happens in the country they
are the ones that pose a lot of knowledge and yet have nothing to show.
The evidence of this was visible in one of the publications of the
Agricultural Council captioned from green revolution to gene revolution.
What these two revolutions have done has no evidence or bearing on the
country what so ever. The green revolution was a disaster and the gene
revolution has not started. In fact the agricultural development
commissioner and his staff did not recognize the gene revolution. What
should be done about them now that the private sector has proved
otherwise? That not withstanding the private sector did all the work in
cotton and the public sector kept on rejecting the issues. The
publication celebrating 25 years of PARC had 250 pages and 335 pictures.
The pictures indicated the illusions created by the last government for
there is no gene revolution that is in evidence.
There is new created knowledge and as everyone is aware that status quo
is sinking sand and there is thus the need and desire to create this
knowledge and that is not growth but development and growth. It is
apparent that the ignorance that is with us is very vast. There is
another problem with the countries that are in the developing mold and
that is that they are not aware of this weakness and rely entirely on
the received knowledge from the west. It is as if they are going to tell
us what is essential for us. The past has also given us evidence of
this. With there being a time squeeze on everyone there is need for
trying to get more mental work. That means that knowledge creation and
its application is not as leisurely as it used to be some years ago when
ten to twelve years was the time required to make some knowledge
applicable to agriculture. Can learning shrink over time or does it mean
that the world does not need any more knowledge. Can there be any chance
that we have reached the end of knowledge. Pakistan’s science is
deplorable and this means that the chance of removing or reducing
ignorance is limited. The options are somewhat limited. If
liberalization is an option then the effort should be to make the book
trade free of exploitative matters. Why should they have a better
exchange rate? Why should they have a rate that is 40% above the normal
exchange rate? As a matter of fact some of my books were published by
Croom Helm and I remember that they had given the Pakistani book trader
massive discounts but these traders are what they are. The book of mine
was available in India at one-third the price that was given to
Pakistani buyer. Human knowledge evening developed country[s] is
contracting and it is more and more going into limited hands and minds.
The tyranny of the experts is going to be the order of the day in the
future and that day is not far off. Even now the knowledge generated in
the developing world is nowhere near the knowledge that is required for
having an equity-based effort in the WTO systems that is being
envisaged.
There is more effort at IPR and such other peripheral requirements that
the west needs so that it can go on having supremacy over the majority
that are living in the developing world. So how can any one talk of one
world for the UN. The gap between the developing world and the developed
is not going to be reduced over time. The lip service that is coming
from the west is one of those actions that have no positive meaning. All
that there effort is to keep shifting the focus of the third world
personal to non-issues and thus changing the focus of the few that were
wanting to develop along the right lines.
The one knowledge that needs to be understood is the local indigenous
knowledge. The local small farmer has vast information on local
ecologies and local requirements. He has not the ability to withstand
the pressures of the powerful mafias that abound. The bull dozing of
rather than the creation of new culture is the aim of the newly
established world of western hit men. How to remove and motivate people
to do their best? What if they further lose their mental work and
continue to live at the subsistence level. The myopic polices of the
west is an indication that the west has lost the war on terror as the
have-nots have only their lives to lose while the haves have a lot to
lose. God should give me the power to be powerless so that when I am in
power I should not have to use that power. The have-nots in Pakistan
will swamp the haves in Pakistan for that is only a question of time.
