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Rural Potential

Pakistan’s economy is primarily agri-based and this is reflected in our inherent capacity for food autarky and in the ability to export cotton and rice, which in fact are our main cash foreign exchange earners, given support lately from fruits and vegetables. For any Third World country this is a significant achievement particularly in view of ever-increasing populations. The people of the SOUTH are afflicted by malnutrition, if not facing outright starvation. The spectre of death haunts the many barren lands, mainly in Africa, an omni-present eventuality enforced by scarce arable lands, alternately buffeted by floods and devastated by drought, further complicated by atrocious human management. To an extent Pakistan has had better than the average agricultural policy, reflected in our considerably happier position in agricultural commodities in the Third World.

Without exception all the successive governments in Pakistan have contributed to Pakistan’s relatively happy position in the agricultural field. Despite great aberrations, particularly in the field of pesticides and fertilisers, agriculture’s success has deserved its sacred-cow status. In successive parliaments, our major landowners have had maximum say and to an extent this contributes to inequalities in taxation but on the other hand, conservative policy-making is ensured, contributing positively to a sedate development of the rural economy.

All very safe and sound but hardly a recipe to ensure significant breakthrough in maximising our agricultural produce, using technology as a force-multiplier for profit from its downstream manufactures. We have failed on two major counts in the utilisation of the credits available to us over the years, this of course if we are to take as an accepted factor the siphoning off of large amounts by vested interests. Our major effort should have been on the early mechanisation of agriculture followed by concentrating on agri-based industries. On the contrary we went the accepted western route of heavy engineering and now find ourselves in a debt morass, our burdening loans having hardly contributed to our prime success story, agriculture. No one doubts the efficacy of heavy industry for a developing economy but the consumer-oriented investment to follow has been a major financial disaster to us because it has tied us into a non-developmental expenditure cycle that we are not capable of breaking out of.

Instead of complicating issues by relying on a blizzard of statistics it will be incumbent upon the newly elected government to spell out Federal priorities as a long-term policy and then de-centralize control completely so that the economy is made totally free. This annunciation of policy has to be done in clear-cut and simple terms, aimed at maximising output by incentive orientation with maximum emphasis on agriculture.

The first priority is consolidation of land holdings to an acceptable economic unit with the 1-acre demarcated plot being the minimum size and delineation of an agriculture unit. Punjab’s great dominance in agriculture is because this makes it easier for the mechanisation of agriculture. Further, innovative planting trees can be done on a North-South axis along the sides of the acre units and should be part of the incentives to farmers, one being an imaginative scheme whereby excess of the optimum production for the area gets “Bonus Vouchers” on a pro-rata sliding basis easily redeemable at financial counters.

To exploit our rural potential fully we must follow (1) the accepted route and (2) the non-conventional one. In the orthodox first premise are measures that we are already undertaking at the present, which include, levelling and demarcation of arable land, proper crop selection and multi-cropping, use of better seeds with maximum output per acre, choice of adequate fertiliser and pesticide, better farm-to-market roads, mechanisation of agriculture, enhancement of water feeder channels, organised collection and storage mechanism, credits available at doorstep to farmers, etc. No doubt that our present policy pays considerable attention to the aforegoing and one cannot dismiss the efforts as lip-service but nonetheless in the present state of burgeoning problems, adequate management of stated policy can be said to be non-existent. To a very great extent, the onus presently falls on government officials and that is exactly the problem, their job should not be to oversee and control the implementation of policy but to coordinate every assistance that may be required by the elected representatives in implementing the stated policy. As opposed to an elected representative of the area, the supplanted official will have extremely limited experience as to actual needs or the experience to fulfill the shortcomings. With increased rural populace, his/her other multifarious duties keeps him/her from devoting sufficient time to rural uplift. The responsibilities must be exercised at every tier by those elected by the people to control their destinies. In no manner one can disparage the immense contribution of the civilian officials, particularly members of the District Management Group (DMG) but it is unfair to expect that they can become rural overlords overnight, masters/mistresses of the destinies of diverse people and areas, of which at most they have sparse knowledge and little or no experience.

The major effort of the DMG and other civilian officials could be to act not only as innovators but as catalysts for the non-conventional route in ensuring rural emancipation. After all, this is an educated lot, the creme de la creme, so to speak. They can apply their education and knowledge to cater for maximisation of agricultural output in a manner that provides maximum benefit to the farmer. The best route would be to coordinate the effort with the elected representative of the area but in the absence of effective cooperation from them, one can turn to direct effort.

In order to create a sense of contribution and cooperation among the rural community as well as to establish a forum from where effective implementation of any magnitude can be conceived, it is necessary to establish Rural Community Centers on a non-profit basis. Depending upon the size of villages and populations therein, these can be located in a single village or as convenient for a group of villages. To make it further interesting for participation by all and sundry, these should become the smallest unit for sports and games as well as entertainment. This village government needs full fledged participation to be effective and innovative means have to be found to ensure and encourage this factor.

The Rural Community Centre (RCC) then becomes a focal point for the economic uplift of the area. While catering for the mundane and routine, the RCC then looks at the (1) the marketability of the produce of the area (2) provision of balanced diet for its members (3) the provision of work for the populace, particularly females (4) the enhancement of earning potential of the area (5) adequate training in various diverse employment opportunities and (6) availability of such facts as may be desirable to the populace.

If one can change the food habits at the village tier level to start with, this will contribute to the economy as a whole. At this time hydrogenated edible oil, i.e. ghee and salt/sugar are being used widely though it has been proved that they have a deteriorating effect on general health. By a combination of mass publicity on the radio and TV as well as video-tapes shown in the RCC, it should be possible to show the adverse effects of these on individuals and families. At the same time alternatives should be so spelt out that the meals become palatable while being nutritious. A slight change in the eating habits of the people, say even 10%, would translate into hundreds of millions of US dollars saved in hard earned foreign exchange. One alternative could be to enhance the protein base in the diet by encouraging the eating of chicken and fish. Before someone raps me over the head for this Marie Antoinette “if they can’t have bread, let them eat cakes,” suggestion let me hasten to add that help could be taken from the Federal Bank for Cooperatives (FBC) to set up poultry and fish farms, wherever possible, under the aegis of the RCCs, thereby providing for employment opportunities as well as the selling of surplus production, which brings us to any number of possibilities for enhancing milk production on a scientific basis at this lowest rural unit. All this would require feed and a number of RCCs can get together to then make a Feed Mill. If there are fruit and vegetables in the area the same grouping could go in for a canning industry or other industries for diversified products and so on and so forth. With the advent of industry in the rural areas and mechanisation of agriculture, an infrastructure for necessary spares, repairs, etc would emerge by itself. All this would provide for employment in the rural areas reversing the “head for the big city for jobs” syndrome manifest at this time.

No single person can make a complete blueprint for economic emancipation. Journalists can provide food for thought or at best act as catalysts, but above all there is a need to shun centralized control or planning for all this, only a stated policy to support of the efforts at the grass roots level. The role of the bureaucrat, educated and young, will be to act as innovators to bring in economic uplift in their respective areas in a manner to suit the genius of their populace and region. Though many RRCs will have similarities, each region will have different imperatives based upon their geographical identities and it must be left to both the elected representatives and the civilian official to work in harmony to bring in the required innovation. The financing of such schemes as well as financial management requires expertise not readily available at the village cooperative tier and that should form the limit of responsibilities of the government, again on an “as required basis”, not as an imposition.

We have vast rural potential and within a thousand words one can only discuss the tip of the iceberg. Years of effort will be required, frustrated by many cynics and other physical setbacks, but a long road needs a small first step and we should look forward to being “better late than never” to exploit our rural potential fully.

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