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Farmers' convention on marketing
LAHORE, Sept 15: A one-day
convention on marketing is being held in Multan on Sunday
(today) with a view to establishing conditions for identifying
'second generation' problems of small farmers, reorganizing
cooperatives to cater to the needs of the agriculture sector
and promoting self help among farmers instead of seeking
governmental assistance and protection.
The convention is being organized by the National Cooperative
Union of Pakistan (NCUP) and is expected to be attended by
farmers from all over the country.
A notable feature of the event is that representatives of
cooperatives will be participating in its proceedings. An
organizer told Dawn that "this will be a step in the direction
of assuming control of their affairs by farmers."
According to a spokesman for the convention, "the purpose of
holding it is to craft strategies that address commercial
concerns and market related challenges, help cooperatives to
retrain their district identity as ethically and socially
concerned organizations, protect farmers from exploitation of
professional traders, money lenders and insensitive policies
of governments as well as reduce financial burden on
consumers."
Farmers were not receiving their due share from the produce
because of marketing imperfections, he said, adding that they
were under pressure to sell their produce to middlemen (arhtis)
at rates much below procurement prices fixed by the government
which were often determined without reference to the farmer's
cost of production and place them at a disadvantage.
Exploitative practices of middlemen and other imperfections of
the market proved back breaking for the growers and ultimately
caused a decline in yields, he said.
Another issue to be taken up at the convention is that credit
is considered a key element only for the modernization of
agriculture, while the crucial aspect of return to the farmers
on their produce is ignored. The low price of the produce
leads to low investment and finally affects the produce.
The convention would also discuss governmental control over
cooperatives. According to a research publication of the
International Labour Organization (ILO), in almost all the
countries of Asia, "oversized departments with limited
expertise continue to meddle with internal working of
cooperatives."
Pakistan has a total of 64,000 cooperatives whose functioning
is supervised and controlled by a staff of over 5,000 public
servants. It is the same in other countries of the region.For
instance, Indonesia has a 13,000 staff for managing 40,000
cooperatives; Nepal's count is 600 employees for 2,000
organizations; 6,000 public servants look after 4,000
cooperatives in Thailand while a staff of 10,000 oversees the
work of 140,000 organizations in Maharashtra state of India.
State control hampers the cooperative's potential to serve
social and economic interests of the people. However, wherever
cooperatives have a free hand, they grow in to viable
organizations by undertaking marketing and processing of
agricultural produce. The convention would aim at making a
start for reducing the governments role.
Pakistan's officially registered 64,000 cooperatives have a
membership of about three million households but the number of
genuine and viable cooperatives is quite small; the majority
comprises dead wood that needs be weeded out to make the
sector efficient and service oriented. Many of the
cooperatives only serve political ends of their directors.
According to area wise break up of the number of cooperatives,
the Punjab has 45,039 organizations, the NWFP 8,420, Sindh
4,211, Balochistan 865, Azad Kashmir 5,231 and Northern Areas
579.
The national convention is to be followed by similar events at
the provincial level, initially at Sargodha, Sukkur and
Peshawar. Such events are to be organized at other centres
later.
The organizers hope that the Multan convention would pave the
way for concrete, collective social action, help cooperatives
to come in to their own and take up the responsibility for
their development and growth in earnest.
They are convinced that professionally managed cooperatives
sincerely working for the benefit of both farmers and
consumers are an urgent need of the country. But this can
happen only when "cooperatives regain control over things on
which they depend for their survival," an organizer said. -
ZAFAR SAMDANI
16 September, 2001
Courtesy Daily Dawn
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