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Farmers continue to suffer from
unfair marketing
By Zafar Samdani
While holding seminars and conferences has become a popular
past time on topics ranging from vital themes to superfluous
subjects for many organizations , government ministries and
departments and of course the NGO's funded by foreign
sources, one does come across a serious exercise once in a
while.
 A
three-day Agribusiness conference in Lahore a few days back
belonged to the later category and produced a number of
points worth pondering. Whether concerned authorities heed
its recommendations or act with unconcern remains to be seen
but the relevance of the conference to the current
agriculture scene in the country was undeniably authentic
and the managers of Pakistan's agriculture sector would do
well to try to resolve issues underlined at the moot.
The most important recommendation of the conference related
to the support price of food products. It emphasized the
need for the support price to match the import price of the
same products.
Pakistan often suffers shortage of some commodity or the
other and when it is imported to meet the shortfall, the
price of imported stuff is substantially higher than what is
offered to local farmers.
It is both illogical and unfair that farmers in distant
lands should be paid a higher price while local producers
are subjected to rates that often do not even meet
production costs. But this attitude is not restricted to
imported food commodities only. The deal for local farmers
is invariably unfair. How ordinary farmers are treated is
one of the banes of Pakistan's agriculture and one of the
prime reasons for low productivity of the sector.
The shortcomings of the system comprising importance
accorded to influence peddlers and well-connected
individuals and corruption of some functionaries of the
government combine to ensure that small farmers do not
receive even the support price for their produce. The
country's political and social system is geared against
their interests.
Wheat is one of the most important crops as it is widely
consumed by the people; it is no secret that its farmers
suffer almost every year. Officials satisfy politically
important farmers or retired or serving officials granted
prime land for services rendered-their contribution unknown
to the masses of Pakistan.
Farmers of the holy cow denomination even purchase wheat
from hand-to-mouth farmers who need cash to invest in the
next crop at rates below the support price and have no
problem disposing off the commodity at a profit.
Procurement organizations assist them willingly, indeed
eagerly because farmers of this category are often their
former colleagues. Small farmers are forced to sell as they
cannot afford to hang on to their crop in the hope of an
equitable deal. This happens when the crop is plentiful.
In times of shortfall, influential farmers are facilitated
for selling their produce to private sector buyers while
small farmers are pressurized to surrender to official
procurement drive.
The government and its agencies thus work for the detriment
of the small farmer. This arrangement has been an
undermining factor for better productivity of the country's
agriculture and would continue to be its sensitive heel
unless the approach is changed.
This brings us to marketing, one of the issues taken up at
the conference. It proposed the framing of a comprehensive
marketing strategy for the sector. But the question is who
is to do that.
The Government of Punjab has already set up a marketing wing
in its Department of Agriculture but that has been done in
perfunctory manner; this could not have been otherwise.
Vested interests' elements roam the corridors of power
unchallenged and have access to decision makers; many of
them are themselves decision makers. What is to be expected
if the dispensation is distorted and differentiates between
various segments of the population.
Further, government officials are not trained for marketing
jobs and in any case, even if they show capability and
commit themselves to honest sights, the present
privilege-based system would not allow the development of
genuine marketing oriented to serving farmers and priorities
of the nation.
Preparing a strategy for marketing and then implementing it
is the job of professionals but even the best of experts
would fail if there isn't a change of heart in the highest
political and administrative levels in the country. The
government has to look within for enhancing the quantum of
productivity.
One cannot imagine that happening in the near future in view
of the fact that vested interest groups are firmly
entrenched in the government. Political groups that may be
viewed as options for the people of Pakistan are not without
their share of wheeling- dealing carpetbaggers. A
prerequisite for efficient and farmer-friendly marketing is
sincerity of approach. That, most unfortunately, is nowhere
in sight.
Still, an effort can be, must be, made for paying a fair
price to farmers for their produce. Elimination of
exploitative practices, reducing them if that is a tall
order can be an excellent recipe for making the farming
sector more productive. Not much improvement can take place
in the agriculture sector without a marketing system based
on the principle of equity.
Exploitation is rampant in marketing of agricultural
produce, particularly minor crops, vegetables and fruit. An
average consumer is unlikely to have much idea of how small
farmers are skinned by manipulators of the markets, arhtis
generally known as middlemen.
When tomatoes sell for Rs75 per kg, the rate paid to the
grower is never more than between Rs5 and Rs10 for that
quantity. It is the same for a majority of small crops sown
by small farmers.
When rates of agriculture items of daily use suddenly
escalate in the bazaar, consumers should realize that the
beneficiary is not the farmer who provides them with what
they need but managers of the market are earning a quick fat
profit at the expense of both farmers and consumers.
Marketing can improve with better storage facilities and
making them available to growers of all varieties of crops
and providing reliable transportation between farms and
markets. That is essential if the produce is not to be
damaged and disfigured by the time it reaches the
wholesaler.
The percentage of vegetables and fruits perish on way to the
consumer has never been properly and accurately assessed but
it should be safe to place that at about twenty percent. The
losses are for farmers to bear while profits are pocketed by
the so-called market forces that have the patronage of the
administration in all markets.
One of the major keys to higher productivity is thus better
marketing and fair deal for farmers. Once the government
ensures that, Pakistan would be on its way to
self-sufficiency in many food items, particularly in crops
in which we are supposed to be rich.
Courtesy: The DAWN
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