Achieving food security loud talk but no real efforts – Pakistan & Gulf Economist

• Uncertified seeds, inadequate lending, poor storage, and weak policies undermine Pakistan’s agriculture sector
• Farmers suffer from flash-floods, drought, nutrient deficiency, postharvest losses, and government inaction

Ever since Pakistan appeared on world map, people were told that agriculture was the strongest forte, which is misleading because the country has been importing food items worth billions of dollars every year. It is partly because of the shifting focus of policy planners from agriculture to industries to agriculture, incongruent policies, hearted efforts to implement these policies and no linkages between agriculture universities/research institutions and farmers and above all little coordination between the federal and provincial governments.

Once upon a time the country had the largest man-made irrigation system which has been destroyed due to inadequate maintenance, the most glaring example of Sukkur Barrage and the major canals. It is on record that the farmers suffers either because of flash-floods or drought because of inadequate water storage facilities and lack of maintenance of water courses.

The other perennial issues are: 1) paltry lending to farmers, 2) sale of uncertified seeds, 3) imbalanced use of nutrients, 4) water logging and salinity, 5) small landholding, and worst of all 6) highly inadequate storage facilities.

Reportedly the State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) has set a PKR2.25 trillion lending target to farmers for the current financial year. It is true that it is higher as compared to last year, but experts are of the opinion it is too paltry. This may be good for the procurement of seeds, nutrients and pesticide, but not enough for buying agricultural implements, solar panels. Around the world, lending to cattle, poultry and fish farming and animal breading are also included in lending to farmers but not in Pakistan. Lending to these activities has remained minuscule because of non-insurance of these activities.

It is highly deplorable that uncertified seeds are still being sold in large quantity in the country. The result is that not only the fields where uncertified quality seeds are planted are affected but adjoining field are also affected. The latest example is fungus attack on onion fields in Sindh. Nearly half of districts were rendered unfit for the cultivation of onion. Earlier uncertified maize seeds were used in Punjab and production was reduced to less than half.

Only the government could be held responsible for the cultivation of uncertified seeds. Yet another example is cotton, the production of this important cash crop that provide the basic raw material for the largest exporting industry – textiles and clothing – has been reduced pathetically low.

It is on record that cultivable land in Pakistan is deficient in nutrient content. The problem is further aggravated due to over-cultivation and non-rotation of crops. Over the years fertilizer prices have sky rocketed due to the hike in feed-gas prices. On top of that DAP prices have also skyrocketed. DAP is an important nutrient for wheat and maize, but farmers over consume urea to overcome shortfall of DAP. Experts are also of the opinion that due to the uneven surface some of the areas get over supply of nutrients and other remain deficient.

It is on record that uncontrolled spread of water logging and salinity is eroding cultivable land due to improper maintenance of water courses. However, the situation is getting alarming in Sindh because other provinces are discharging the saline water in the Indus River as well as drains passing through the province.

Pakistan has introduced land reforms twice, as a result over the years the average landholding has reduced and become uneconomical. This fragmentation is also responsible for the reduction of yield. Experts say that Pakistan now needs aggregation/ consolidation to make landholding economically viable. Along with this, experts are also talking about Corporate Farming. They are of the opinion that corporate farming will usher a new era of mechanized farming.

Last but not the least postharvest losses ranging from 20% to 40% are the real cause of concern. These losses not only deprive the growers of their legitimate income, but also affect the consumers as well as the government.

During 2024 wheat growers suffered the worst because of the bumper crop. The government not only bought less than the average buying but lack of storage capacity forced the farmers to sell their produced at less than half the price. Since wheat is stores at non-designated warehouses, it is feared that huge quantity will be smuggled to India, facing acute shortage of wheat.

This is not only the loss of farmers, but consumers and on top of all Pakistan suffers. The country could earn billions of dollars from export of these commodities, if saved from going stale.

Only the policy planners could be held responsible for the losses of such colossal magnitude. State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) should also be held equally responsible because it has failed in discharging its responsibility.

For FY25 SBP had fixed an indicative lending target of 2.535 trillion rupees. However, no details of actual lending have been posted at its website.

In the absence of data it remains a mystery that how much money was disbursed for the purchase of: 1) inputs, 2) implements and development of farms and 3) for the construction of warehouses, particularly grain storage silos.

During FY25 Pakistan produced about 30 million tons wheat, 10 million tons maize and another 10 million tons rice, aggregating the total quantum of three food cereals at 50 million tons.

As per data available at Naymat Collateral Management Company, an entity responsible for the accreditation of warehouse, website the aggregate accredited facilities are around 0.350 million tons, most of this is either captive (owned/ operated by chicken feed manufacturers or rice exporters. At the best 50,000 tons facilities are being used under Electronic Warehouse Receipt financing.

The Electronic Warehouse Receipt financing facility was introduced to facilitate lending to farmers, using their produce as collateral. The shocking outcome is that during financial year FY25 all the banks/ financial institutions put together issued Electronic Warehouse Receipt worth less than 1.5 billion rupees.

The reason was most obvious, hardly a few warehouses are available for the safe keeping of staple food cereals. The most shocking observation is that the warehouses previously used by the Punjab Government to store wheat could not meet Naymat accreditation criteria.