Daily Times

Poor agriculture policies have been bringing farmers on roads every time there has been a bumper crop of potatoes in the last few years. In the absence of a carefully thought-out export policy, market mechanisms mean that for many farmers the selling price is far short of the cost incurred on the crop.

Speaking to the media during a recently held protest demonstration in Lahore, the leadership of Pakistan Kissan Ittehad, a Punjab based association of farmers, claimed that a kilogramme of potato had cost them about Rs17 in term of inputs, while another Rs6 per kg was spent on storage. After spending Rs23 per kg on the crop, when farmers were expecting the selling price to be somewhere around Rs30 per kg, they learnt that the market price was not even Rs10 per kg. This led to the protest which has been temporarily called off on government’s assurances of a settlement.

A governmental committee, consisting of Finance Minister Asad Umar, Advisor to Prime Minister Razak Dawood, Minister for Food Security Mehboob Sultan, Punjab Agriculture Minister Nauman Langrial, Agriculture Secretary Dr Wasif Khurshid and PKI representatives, will sit on January 23 to discuss the concerns of potato growers.

What makes potato a surplus yield is the lack of options for farmers. In Okara district alone, there are 300 cold storage centres housing two million tons of potato. The situation is similar in the potato hub districts of Sahiwal, Pakpattan, Kasur, Sheikhupura, Gujranwala, Faisalabad and Chiniot. Loads of potato are likely to rot in cold storage given their current market price unless a mechanism is drawn out in the January 23 meeting to deal with the problem.

Other cash crops also offer sorry state of affairs. With the inception of the crushing season, reports start emerging of the clamour of cane farmers regarding delayed payments by sugar mills, buying on less rates and undue cuts in the crop weight by millers. Similarly, the wheat procurement begins with complaints of farmers regarding the mushrooming of private buyers, lack of gunny bags at public procurement centres and interference of public representatives in the release of gunny bags. Rice often shows stable export figures, and recently Saudi Arabia opened its door to the Pakistani yield for the first time after Indian rice was banned. The crop is, however, suffering high input costs because of the shortage of irrigation water.

In line with the claims made in its manifesto, the PTI government must immediately draw up a comprehensive export policy for cash crops like potato. Afghanistan can be a good market for Pakistani potatoes as Indian potatoes suffer huge expenditures on logistics. The authorities must also explore options in agro-based value-added industries.

This process must be undertaken in consultation with the academia and the research community who can help the government balance various conflicting economic interests involved. For instance, the farming community itself is far from a monolith. Owing to the lack of any substantive agrarian land reforms, there is a minority of farmers who own large, unproductive estates, while the rest of the farmland is distributed among growers with medium- and small- landholdings. The agriculture policy must be made such that the interests of the most vulnerable farmers are protected on a priority. Then there is the matter of staple crops’ consumption in urban centres where a reasonable price has to be ensured, particularly for income-poor households.  *

Published in Daily Times, January 19^th 2019.