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Pros and cons of corporate
farming
Syed Mohammad Tahir
Federal Minister for Food and Agriculture Khair Muhammad
Junejo has divulged that the government has decided in
principle to go ahead with corporate farming in near future as
being implemented in other countries like Zimbabwe and South
Africa.
The question arises can Pakistan reap advantages of the
corporate farming as other countries are achieving or it will
be re-trapped in energy sector-like situation?
The answer is lies in the strategy and policies being
constituted by the concerned authorities in this regard.
However, the scenario is uncertain and undefined. In the same
way, there are many other questions like which area is being
allocated to these investors? Or local and foreign investors
will be combined to acquire land on lease? What will Pakistan
get in this practice and what will be its impact on our
agricultural sector? It is crystal clear that policies
are framed to protect only investors' interests and not for
small farmers who are uneducated.
The experts are of the opinion that small farmers who are 93
per cent of agriculture sector, having only 37 per cent
of land, would be the major sufferers after the implementation
of this scheme while the big landlords, seven per cent of the
farming community, with 63 per cent of the total land, will
not be effected in any way by the corporate farming.
The concerned ministry officials supposed that with the
introduction of corporate farming, our agriculture
sector would be on strong footing whereas experts have
apprehension in their minds that Pakistan will get nothing out
of this scheme as foreign earnings through export of
vegetables, fruits would remain out of the country,
unemployment would increase and scheme would further
impoverish farmers and force them to leave even their homes in
search of other means of livelihood.
Apparently the objective of this scheme is to commercialise
the agriculture sector.
The scheme will also attract investors in other
agriculture-related sub-sectors like
fisheries, production of mutton through raising of sheep and
goats, dairy farming,
off-season vegetable production, animal feed mills, fruit
juice making plant, solvent
oil extraction from rice bran, tomato paste production and
sunflower hybrid seed
It is supposed that Pakistan has more than 9.1 million
hectares culturable waste land.
Culturable waste land is that area which is fit for
cultivation but was not cropped.
The reasons might be lack of water and financial constraints.
It is believed that
culturable waste land is almost half of the cultivated area.
Hence development of
this area is not only better for investment but also have
potential to contribute
to increase in agricultural production.
CULTURABLE WASTE AREA
Area (MILLION
HECTARES)
| Punjab |
1.74
|
| Sindh
|
1.45
|
| NWFP
|
1.08
|
| Balochistan
|
4.87
|
|
Total
Pakistan |
9.14
|
In Punjab, culturable waste area is mainly in the
Divisions of D.G. Khan, Bahawalpur, Rawalpindi;
in Sindh it is located at Hyderabad, Mirpur Khas,
Sukkur and Larkana Divisions;
in NWFP. it is in D. I. Khan, Hazara and Kohat
Divisions
whereas in Balochistan, the culturable waste land
is situated mainly in the Kalat Division followed by Quetta,
Nasirabad and Makran Divisions.
Pakistan's climate is favorable to grow a variety of crops,
vegetables and fruits. Major crops produced are wheat, rice,
cotton, sugarcane, maize, gram, onion, potato, rape and
mustard seed, and sunflower whereas major fruits produced
include apple, dates, citrus, mango, grapes and guava. Once
the culturable waste lands are developed, the government
officials believed, there are bright chances that production
of all these crops would be in abundance and could be export
in huge quantity and hence bring a handsome amount in country
in foreign exchange.
But the ground realities are quite different from these
attractive policies, which are written only in books.
The foreign exchange, which these companies would earn by
exporting crop, fruits, vegetables, flowers to Middle East,
Far East and other regions of the world would certainly
send to their respective countries. Our small farmers are not
know even how to use water economically and its treatment, to
use quality seed, land-levelling through conventional means,
soil testing and the optimum use of fertilizer and
pesticides.
They need to be educated in these basic requirements to get
better results rather put them at the mercy of foreign
investors. The other major loophole is that, this scheme would
play havoc with this sector like IPPs and would break the back
of the common man as food items would be far costlier than
they are today.
It is hard fact that since its inception, Pakistan is survived
just it has an agrarian economy. People of Pakistan, though,
do not lead a luxury life but they have basic necessary crops
in their own country. If this sector is also awarded to
foreign investors, Pakistan may get devastated its
agricultural sector as IPPs devastated the industrial
sector by triggering escalation of electricity charges.
One can only wishes the decision makers of corporate farming
scheme take the matter seriously while getting suggestions
from agriculture-related senior people as being practiced all
over the world so that a formidable policy could be
evolve which would not only be in the interest of the Pakistan
but also in the best interest of small farmers.
The Nation, 10 September, 2001
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