Pakistan has been blessed with four seasons and it has over 60 per cent of the population associated with farming. The need of the hour is to provide subsidy to the farmers.
Pakistan face wheat shortage every year which is artificially created and government as always fail to curtail the mafia that makes millions in creating it. The last year fiasco is still fresh in the people’s mind and not all is forgotten.
The exorbitant prices of the machinery added with fertilizers and poor quality of seed has made things very hard for the farmers who are the backbone of the national economy.
Pakistan face wheat shortage every year which is artificially created and government as always fail to curtail the mafia that makes millions in creating it. The last year fiasco is still fresh in the people’s mind and not all is forgotten.
Blessed with everything, Pakistan has all the resources which makes it unique as it is the agricultural product that results in nearly half of the foreign exchange earned.
The world faced food shortage during the Corona pandemic especially in developed countries where the people stayed in lines for hours to get food.
It was the agricultural base in Pakistan which never let it happen people though suffered but there was no shortage. Some did try to capitalize on people’s misfortune and made money but there was no panic at the home front.
The Corona pandemic had many a lessons for the policymakers. The shortcomings that existed in the system were identified and for once planning was done how to tackle the unforeseen. The capacity building of the institutions were also weighed in and steps were taken to curtail the shortcomings.
The biggest issue agriculture sector face is the exploitative system that exists in Pakistan and the landless farmers are severely affected by it. There has been nothing done to empower the landless farmer that suffers at the hands of feudal elite who control their lifeline.
The issues affecting Pakistan agricultural sector besides machinery and fertilizers are scarcity of water, power outages and most blatant one the water terrorism by India.
There has been recent warning from Pakistan Disaster Management Authority for Azad Kashmir residents living near Neelum Valley as India released water from its Kishan Ganga Dam which has raised water level in the river by many feet.
Agriculture in Pakistan is still done in the most primitive of forms as the landless farmers have nothing much to change their life and lifestyle from sun up to sun down they toil the land and in the end they have nothing much in the form of money to improve their quality of life.
The government which fails to come to the rescue of the farmers does nothing much to save them from the damage which is in the form of counterfeit fertilizers and water wars.
The decline which has also come to the notice of policymakers in the time of pandemic has been attributed to various reasons but the foremost one was the involvement of the middleman which takes away all and makes the maximum profit from the efforts of the poor farmer which end up with the short end of the stick.