Dr Zuhair Hasnain
IN winter’s chill or summer’s heat, a farmer works so the world can eat. In developing countries like Pakistan, agriculture continues to be the main source of employment, livelihood and income. Agriculture is a source of livelihood of 43% of rural population. Farmers face the greatest challenge of unification and competitiveness in advanced markets. They are restricted by absence of basic public services as a result of, market freedom, up to date policy reforms as well as economical and capacity constraints. Problems of farmers are three fold: Poor infrastructure, illiteracy, and inadequate monetary solutions including risk management etc. Illiteracy is the main problem among farmers community. Farmers have no idea what’s going on in farming industry and about all the innovations in agriculture sector for better production. Internet and books can’t even help them.
Rural illiteracy is very high and this causes the old and traditional farming skills to be transferred to new generations instead of by means of proper education system and adoption of innovations. Farmers, who hold less than two hectares of land or small landholders can’t afford the modern machinery to increase productivity because of the small size of land. They cannot afford the expense of agricultural inputs for the crop production. There are no basic facilities to the farmers such as electricity and hence farm operations are affected which result in low or poor quality production with less profit to producers. Agriculture labour is a big problem for farmers. Many people are migrating to cities to earn money as they have no net return in farming and hence there is lack of labour at the required time.
There is no proper source of irrigation and if the source is there, insufficiency of irrigation is the obstacle. Depleting ground water tables is another concern. Seed is a critical and basic input for achieving higher crop yields and sustained growth in agricultural production. Distribution of good quality seed is as condemnatory as the production of such seeds. Unfortunately, good quality seeds are out of reach of the majority of farmers, especially small and marginal farmers mainly because of sky-high prices of better seeds. Similarly, good fertilizers, pesticides etc. are also out of reach of farmers. Instead of the expensive mechanization of agriculture in some parts of the country, most of the agricultural operations in larger parts are carried on by human hand using simple and conventional tools and implements like wooden plough, sickle, etc because either the farmer is unaware about latest technology or he cannot afford the expense of mechanization for his land, resultantly farmer will continue using the old methods. Agricultural marketing still continues to be in a bad shape in rural Pakistan.
In the absence of good marketing facilities, the farmers have to depend upon local traders and middlemen for the disposal of their farm produce which is sold at throw-away price and as a result there is no fair return to farmer. There is insufficiency of capital. Agriculture is an important industry and like all other industries it also requires capital. The role of capital input is becoming more and more important with the advancement of farm technology. Since the farmer’s capital is locked up in his lands and stocks, he is obliged to borrow money for stimulating the tempo of agricultural production. An effective agricultural extension service acts as a connecting link between the research service and the farming community. It provides farmer with findings of the research workers and brings back the problems of farmers to the research workers so that these problems can be solved as quickly as possible, and the research workers are kept in touch with the situation in the field but unfortunately this link is weakest. As a result, farmers still use their traditional methods and there is no innovation and betterment in crop production. There is no proper transportation system available to the farmer at fair prices so that he could transport his product to market at time without deterioration of produce.
Higher rural productivity will lead to faster growth of agriculture, rural employment and funds for industrial development along with providing food to ever increasing population. However, the productivity gains restricted to big farmers may lead to deterioration of social unrest, income inequalities and political instability. At the same time, increasingly integrated, globalized and consumer-driven agricultural and food markets require small holders to adapt to innovations. Technology can’t solve all problems when most farmers can’t afford them. We should build some skill development programmes. We should also increase the land holding by making sure people either rent out the land or sell them to other skilled farmers. This will also need a lot of re-skill of farmers. We need vocational schools and a lot of fertilizers, insecticides and high quality seeds at fair prices affordable for marginal farmers as well. We need to subsidize tractors and other mechanical devices. Rural irrigation needs to be developed. Then, the use of technology can be effectively done in different ways in order to help out farmers such as direct transfer of financial support by the government to the farmers and agricultural marketing through means of latest technology like mobile phones will be another step ahead. All this is possible if the extension department is strong as its linkage chain between the farmers and research institutes. In this way, small farmers will be up to date with innovations and they will solve many of their problems themselves thereby calling economic growth to the country. Need to mention, the present government “Prime Minister Agriculture Emergency Programme” worth PKR: 277 billion can be a game-changer in addressing many of above-mentioned issues.
—The writer is Assistant Professor and Project Director Attock Campus, PMAS-Arid Agriculture University Rawalpindi.
