Realising land potential
By
Ibrahim Lakhiar
PAKISTAN is a divinely blessed country with vast swathes of
fertile land and perennially flowing waterways, that
traverse and criss-cross its heartlands, flanking silt-laden
and gold-growing soil on either side.
A bird`s-eye view of the sector would reveal that lot of
land has been brought under the plough. The credit for this
task squarely goes to growers. The input of the government
has been minimal. Growers` single-handed endeavours have
born fruit in converting barren lands into blooming fields.
Despite ceaseless efforts of growers, most of the land,
especially in Sindh, is not properly developed. A cursory
glance at the expanse of lands would be met with repelling
looks. Looks look abhorrent, when the land is viewed during
the period falling between harvesting of one crop and
growing of another.
These repelling looks emerge from the uneven surface of
lands, massive amassing of unwanted heaps of earth in its
bosoms and the thick and clumsy embankments of minors and
tributaries.
If the bonded land under the occupation of unwanted earth is
retrieved for cultivation, it may amount to a slew of `ghuntas`
in almost every `survey number` of the land. The released
area at national level could add up to multiple thousands of
acres, which could yield many more maunds of crop yield,
touching fancy figure in every cropping season.
Unlevelled land, when flooded, develops depressions and
forms puddles. The stagnant water in pools affects crops`
growth. Similarly earth in heaps and embankments deprive the
grower of additional space of fertile land for cultivation.
Attractive ambience offers added incentive to stay put in
the place. Well developed land would not be an exception to
this rule. Farmers loitering in the land leisurely would not
tolerate weird growth of weeds. They would uproot the same
to enable the neighboring plants to sprout luxuriantly.
Acceptability of the clean marketable surplus would then be
enhanced at first glance.
Handicapped by resource constraints, the growers cannot be
expected to hire privately-owned and highly-rented heavy
machinery to level the land and remove the dunes. The
condition of the government-owned rickety bulldozers leaves
a lot to be desired. Their condition is too bad to complete
the assignment, confronting countless breakdowns and leaving
the growers in the lurch. As for big wigs, they have myriad
of resources to beef up their bulging bank balances, caring
little to develop the land that could at least benefit the
back-bared toilers on their lands.
Retrieving land from the jaws of earth dunes and leveling do
not beg billions of rupees from the government to purchase
necessary equipment. Infra-structure to assimilate the
equipment already exits at district level. What is required
is shopping the bulldozers and laser equipment from some
friendly foreign country.
In the on-going episode of engagements with the US, a window
of opportunity has opened in the flagship aid programme on
non-military side under the Kerry-Lugar-Bremman Act. One of
the components of the aid package relates to agriculture. If
the embedded wisdom of the American is to be trusted, the US
government can pick up the tab without involving the GoP
functionaries undertake detailed extra homework to convince
them about the advantages of the requisition. A caveat can,
however, be appended to ask the Americans to provide brand
new machinery and not over-hauled junks.
If the government cherishes the desire to move forward
towards sustained self-sufficiency in food sector, it will
have to move away from the syndrome of promises outpacing
performance. It will have to develop a workable stratagem,
plugging crannies and crevices in the agriculture sector.
For optimal utilisation of land potential, creation of
conditions on the surface of the soil is significant. The
deficiencies high-lighted may look perfunctory, over-hyped
or not appealing, but viewed contextually, these would prove
to be a driving force to further maximise production,
following enhanced interest of the farmers due to creation
of pleasing condition of ambience on the place of work.
Courtesy: The DAWN