LAHORE: Pakistan’s agriculture sector achieved some crop production targets during the year 2021, nevertheless such achievements were offset largely due to bad-governance and the country keeps on importing its staple crop, i.e. wheat.
The wheat import figure for the year 2020-21 was 3.6 Million Tons (MT) or $983.3 million. But despite the bumper production of wheat crop in Pakistan in 2021 (27.5MT), the economic managers, keeps on importing wheat from international market to manage the ‘Food Security’ issue.
From July to November 2021-22, government imports 0.95 MT or $340.1 million worth of wheat. The Sugar portrays a similar story. The country, as per official figures, suggested 7.0 MT of sugar production, though Pakistan Sugar Mills Association is expecting up to 5.9MT sugar for the upcoming season, but despite this, in first four months of this fiscal year, 3,07,855 Metric Tons or $188.52 million worth of sugar was imported. In 2020-21 a total of 2,81,321 Metric Tons or $128.65 million sugar was being imported.
The production targets were satisfactory, as per economic survey of Pakistan 2020-21 the sector grows by 2.77% against 2.8% target.
The growth of important crops (wheat, rice, sugarcane, maize and cotton) during the year was 4.65%. The production of sugarcane increased by 22.0% to 81.009 Million Tons from 66.380 Million Tons, rice by 13.6% to 8.419 Million Tons from 7.414 Million Tons and maize by 7.4% to 8.465 Million Tons from 7.883 Million Tons. However, the cotton production reduced by 22.8%, to 7.064 million bales from 9.148 million bales last year.
Still the bumper productions and huge imports of important crops did not manage the rising inflationary pressures. The country saw a continuous upward rise in basic commodity prices like wheat or flour, sugar, edible oil and essential vegetables throughout the year, create a feeling of anger among when it comes to manage the affairs of this sector and the future food security issues.
The agriculture experts are now terming the rising input costs as alarming and a threat to our national food security, since the inflationary wave is a global phenomenon and the farmers of third world countries are facing a similar situation, this could have a negative impact when it comes to the international commodity prices especially wheat.
“The main input ingredient i.e. DAP is touching Rs10,000 per 50kg bag and off course the ever increasing prices of electricity, diesel etc. are an additional burden for a farmer”, said Pakistan Kissan Ittehad President Khalid Khokhar.
Talking with Express Tribune he said that currently food security has replaced the border security at least for next ten years. Urea is costly and it may result in less production if we weight-inn the entire inflationary trends. India is also facing a similar situation, what if wheat production in both countries decline due to high input costs. “The international price for wheat can shoot-up due to demand-supply issue in coming year”. One solution is to increase the support price to encourage the farmer for more production at least for our staple crop, Khokhar added.
Former Chairman Pakistan Agriculture Research Council Doctor Yusuf Zafar said that Business-as-usual is no longer a viable strategy as more international institutions consider a bleak future of food security in Pakistan that will look and feel much different than even present bad situation.
As per him the first and foremost cause of pushing Pakistan from surplus to scarce is the bad governance. Three federal ministers and two advisors during first three years of the present government. That was not enough. Repeated changes of federal secretary/ additional secretaries of Ministry of National Food Security and Research (MNFS&R) made things worse.
“The second cause of our downward trajectory in Food security is the absence of active and effective coordination between federal ministry and provincial agriculture departments. After the 18th amendment the situation at provinces level is more fragmented and complex. Therefore, the much touted Agriculture Emergency Program (AEP) of over 300 billion rupees launched by PTI government in 2019 is destined for failure as funds distribution formula was 60:40 among provinces and Federal government”, Zafar said.
The recent impasse between Sindh and IRSA, a federal government department over water distribution during ongoing Kharif season speaks loudly of such discord. The situation of other programs of international development partners are suffering long delays and repeated interruptions and mostly rated with below average progress or unsatisfactory performance.
Delay in locust management loan of $200 million for over a year and still suffering. Similarly, SMART project of WB ($300 million) under Punjab government is also deviated much from the 13 performance based reimbursement indicators. The ETI project of IFAD ($120 million) in Gilgit- Baltistan (GB) is coming to a closure phase with many objectives yet to start.
The fourth and final major cause of going from surplus to scarce is ill-planned and ill-designed Agriculture Transformation (AT) plan of Agriculture sectors at federal and Punjab levels, Zafar added.
The stakeholders are agreeing that food security is a complex and sensitive issue as provision of sufficient and nutritious food to its citizen is a constitutional responsibility of the state. Agriculture which is an open air industry and its supply chain of “farm to fork” is long and complicated. By following the simple issue of demand and supply along with transparent and strong regulations supported by strong IT and traceability at every step is the only workable option for a sustainable supply of food items.
