Several hundred farmers converged on Islamabad recently to protest against the soaring costs of agricultural inputs, diesel and electricity. They had initially refused to end their protest unless their demands were accepted and a meeting was arranged with the prime minister. Their protest was called off after a breakthrough in talks with government representatives.
The protests should remind the government of the critical importance of agriculture to the revival of a teetering economy, and the need to control surging food prices, food shortages and soaring poverty. The country’s fiscal and current account woes cannot be tackled on a sustainable basis without drastically and rapidly improving the agricultural economy.
The sector faces multiple challenges, ranging from low yield to erosion in soil fertility owing to the excessive use of pesticides and fertilisers, water-logging and salinity, obsolete and inefficient farming practices, changing weather patterns owing to climate change, and what not.
Sadly, government policies have only aggravated these problems, encouraging fixed cropping patterns, and discouraging a shift to value-added crops. The policy focus on expanding the cultivable area and increasing the use of chemicals for higher output has endangered food safety and is hindering efforts to boost farm exports.
As agriculture can play a major role in economic revival, the government must allocate sufficient resources for agricultural research, set up initiatives to encourage the adoption of modern farm technologies and practices, and stop influencing farmers’ crop selection.
ABDUL QADIR
TURBAT
